Lisa Biagiotti | multimedia journalist

Worldfocus Radio: Entrepreneurship in Ethiopia

I produced this radio show for Worldfocus.org.

Last year, the Economist magazine slotted Ethiopia as the fourth fastest growing economy in the world, ahead of China. The World Bank report “Doing Business 2010” ranks Ethiopia in the top 10 African nations in terms of the ease of doing business. The Ethiopian government is trying to strengthen local and regional businesses and attract foreign direct investment.

Martin Savidge, Ethiopian businessman Ermyas Amelga and economics professor Phillip LeBel discuss how easy it is to do business in Ethiopia, who’s investing and what this means as Ethiopia moves from an agrarian society to a more urban society. The entrenched poverty hinders the robust investment environment, saddling the country with drought, food shortages and inadequate infrastructure.

Some highlights from the show:

• Ethiopia is not a resource-based economy. The sectors that are thriving in Ethiopia are real estate, construction, services, manufacturing, textiles and commercial agriculture with arable land leasing
• A growing population topping 80 million people make Ethiopia a strong consumer society
• Major investors in Ethiopia: China, India, Turkey and Egypt — the U.S. is not a major investor
• Ethiopia’s poverty-stricken image and government-controlled electronic communications and the Internet are potential hurdles to foreign investment
• Ethiopia’s Diaspora community is driving Ethiopia’s real estate boom

Worldfocus Radio: Turkey torn between East and West

I produced this radio show for Worldfocus.org.

Martin Savidge hosts Gareth Jenkins, a British analyst and author, and Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish journalist, to discuss whether Turkey is leaning West or moving East. Some highlights from the conversation include:

• The ruling Justice and Development (AK Party) has been accused of being both too Islamist and too pro-Western
• Islamism in Turkey has more to do with values and identity than imposing Sharia law
• While Islam is more prominent in Turkey today, the paradox is that the Islamicization of Turkish society began with secularist military after the 1980 coup
• Turkey’s religious minorities feel more threatened by hard-line (secular) nationalists than the ruling AK Party
• It’s wrong to think that Turkey’s Islamist groups are posing threats to democracy while the secular groups are serving democracy — it’s not simply black and white
• On eroding relations between Israel and Turkey, when Israel bombed Gaza, Turks sympathized for the plight of the Palestinians and the level of anti-Semitic rhetoric rose in Turkey, but before the Gaza war, Turkey was trying to establish peace between Israel and Syria
• The Turkish government has not been critical of other ruling Muslim governments — like Sudan — for human rights abuses
• On Turkey’s increasing resentment toward the European Union, there have been racial and religious prejudices by prominent members France and Germany
• Do Arab countries fear a dominant neo-Ottoman Turkey in the Middle East? Or, is there a growing sympathy in the Arab world for Turkey asserting its Muslim identity?
• A Turkey that has prestige in the Muslim world and keeps its ties with West is good for peace and stability in the region

Worldfocus Radio: Guatemala — behind the famine

I produced this radio show for Worldfocus.org.

Last month, Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom declared a “state of calamity” as Guatemala experiences the worst drought in 70 years. Approximately half of the population lives below the poverty line and 50 percent of children are suffering from chronic malnutrition. But these are only the surface casualties of a vulnerable nation ravaged by 36 years of civil war, genocide and now, the encroaching drug war spilling over from the northern border with Mexico.

Worldfocus special correspondent Martin Savidge hosts Anita Isaacs, Carlisle Johnson and Sam Lowenberg. Some highlights of the conversation include:

* Guatemala in 2009 looks a lot like Guatemala of the 1960s and 1970s
* Malnutrition is connected to poverty, which is connected to the ownership of land
* There is almost no basic infrastructure in rural areas, including access to clean water and sanitation
* The U.S. CIA-orchestrated coup in 1954 gave rise to 36 years of genocidal armed conflict
* Lawlessness on the streets, drug trafficking and rural violence have contributed to the deaths of 6,000 people in 2008
* Indigenous systems of justice punish by means of lynching and public humiliation
* The sitting vice president has called Guatemala a “failed state”
* There has been no justice for war crimes and the civil war hangs over everyday life in Guatemala
* Is Guatemala a feudal society that never stopped being a banana republic?
* Guatemala has the highest per-capita income in all of Central America at $4,000/person, but income distribution is woefully underreported
* As the capital of Central America with it’s entangled history with the U.S., Guatemala does matter

Worldfocus: One island, two Jamaicas and a ‘whole heap’ of difference

I was the correspondent, writer and editor of the video story One island, two Jamaicas and a ‘whole heap’ of difference, which aired on Worldfocus on Oct. 1, 2009.

Jamaican society can be divided along class, language and culture lines. It’s rich vs. poor, English vs. Patois and uptown vs. downtown.

Correspondent Lisa Biagiotti, producer Micah Fink and director of photography Gabrielle Weiss examine the public debate that erupted earlier this year when graphic Dancehall music lyrics and images were banned from Jamaica’s airwaves. The public responses reveal the legacy of two Jamaicas dating back to the country’s slave history.

Worldfocus: No daggerin’ on Jamaican TV and on Worldfocus

This article was published on Worldfocus.org: No daggerin’ on Jamaican TV and on Worldfocus.

Correspondent Lisa Biagiotti reported the signature story One island, two Jamaicas and a ‘whole heap’ of difference with Micah Fink and Gabrielle Weiss of the Pulitzer Center. Lisa shares why Worldfocus didn’t broadcast daggerin’ images, addresses the realities of rampant violence and adolescent sex and recounts how some Jamaican artists are singing more uplifting gospel Dancehall music.

At the center of the music ban in Jamaica is daggerin’. Earlier this year, Jamaica’s national broadcasting commission banned sexually-explicit and violent lyrics and images related to daggerin’.

Worldfocus — based in New York City, not Kingston — also decided not to air these images because we thought our audience might be alarmed by the graphic nature of the dance. (Tell us below what you think of the daggerin’ images!) We didn’t mention daggerin’ in our video story because it begged the question…what is daggerin’?

Americans usually refer to this form of dancing as “freaking,” “bumping and grinding” or “dry-humping.” Urban clubs across the U.S. are packed with young people doing the American version of daggerin’.

In Jamaica, opponents of daggerin’ have described the dance as having sex with clothes on and even framed it as an aggressive, violent rape. Essentially, a woman bends over while a man pounds against her to the beat of the music. They liken the dance to a dagger stabbing piece of meat, violently and repeatedly.

The daggerin’ dance and the music that goes along with it slit Jamaican society. The Christian moral guard said children were overexposed to sex at an immature age. The defenders of Dancehall said the music mirrored the life and pressures in Jamaica’s poorest ghettos.

Turf wars and teen pregnancies

But behind the public music clash lurks the reality of rampant violence and adolescent sex in Jamaica.

Last year, 1,600 people were murdered mainly because of turf wars and reprisal killings. But this is still four to five murders a day for an island the size of Connecticut with a population of 2.8 million. (Most murders are confined to waring communities and the result of turf wars and reprisal killings.)

As for sex, approximately 80 percent of children are born out of wedlock and 35 percent of Jamaican women are pregnant by age 19.

Put down the gun and praise the Lord to the tune of gospel Dancehall

Not all Dancehall music is “murder music,” and not all of it is so sexually charged it could electrocute you. The Dancehall genre can be broken down into three streams: hardcore (explicit), mainstream (radio and TV friendly) and gospel (uplifting and positive).

The Worldfocus feature story One island, two Jamaicas and a whole heap of difference focused on the hardcore Dancehall variety, examining Jamaican society through the lens of the public debate on daggerin’ music. Hardcore Dancehall has gained international airplay, but has also come under attack abroad. Concerts of Jamaican singer Buju Banton are currently being canceled in the U.S. because gay groups are saying his lyrics advocate the killing of homosexuals.

As for mainstream Dancehall, lyrics must be sanitized or changed completely for air play. For example, “Rampin’ Shop” became “Dumpling Shop.” The tune and rhythm were the same, but the lyrics were child-proofed.

When I was in Jamaica late last spring, I stopped over at Roots FM, a community-based radio station that pumps positive music and conversation into the inner cities. Every week, Dudley Thompson hosts “What’s the Verdict” — an American Idol styled contest where callers can vote on songs from emerging artists. The gospel Dancehall song “Same Gun” by Xtreme had won the contest. The song traces the cycle of violence committed by one gun that kills a person, is stolen and used again until it it is put down. The young artists of Xtreme, Chris D and Lyrical, dedicated the song to their three slain friends and hope their music encourages more peace and love.

LISTEN to Chris D and Lyrical’s song “Same Gun:”

Joel Harrison, known as Kruddy, is a DJ at 876radio.com and supports the music ban, believing that Dancehall artists are now forced to be more creative and are singing about the recession and fathers abandoning their children. Critics aren’t convinced the ban has had any real effect on artists because the realities in Jamaica’s inner city have not changed.

Keepin’ it safe with Daggerin’ condoms

And for his part, Vybz Kartel, whose sexually-explicit song “Rampin’ Shop” provoked the ban, has come out with a line of Daggerin’ condoms. Now you can dagger away to his sexually-explicit music, and should you feel compelled to take off your clothes, you’re equipped with his Daggerin’ brand of condoms.

- Lisa Biagiotti