Interview with filmmaker Michael Kleiman, director of “Web”

Web is an upcoming full-length documentary directed by Michael Kleiman, a young and talented filmmaker from New York who embarked on a personal journey to capture the moment when a group of children in a remote corner of Peru’s Amazon jungle interact with the Internet for the first time.

Consulting some of the leading minds in the Internet world, Kleiman explores profound questions about technology, interdependence, and the deep human connections that bind us all.

The film follows the work of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) — an organization that produces network-based laptops for distribution to children in the poorest areas of the world. One of those locations was Palestina, Peru.

“It’s a little ironic that they have the information superhighway before they have a highway,” Kleiman says in this podcast interview with Peruvian Times:

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Peruvian Times Podcasts sponsored by Fertur Peru Travel and El Sol Language School.
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Peru celebrates UNESCO inscription of Danza de Tijeras and other Andean ritual dance

Peru is celebrating this week after UNESCO inscribed two ritual dances in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritiage of Humanity.

On Wednesday, UNESCO announced that the scissors dance, a traditional competitive dance from Quechua villages in Peru’s south-central highlands, and Huaconada, a festival dance from the central Andes, met the criteria for worldwide notice.

“We are a country of talented people and I’m very happy that our friends, the scissors dancers, have this recognition,” state news agency Andina reported musicians Bartola and Marco Romero as saying.

“We hope that in the coming years other cultural expressions from Peru receive a similar seat of honor,” said Peru’s Culture Minister Juan Ossio.

Scissors dancers hold in their right hand iron rods, which represents scissors blades. The dancer, which wears a multicolored outfit, forms a team with a violinist and a harpist that represents their village or community. Read more…

Peru improves ranking in global competitiveness, challenges persist

As Peru’s economy is set to see a strong expansion in 2010, the country still faces a number of competitiveness challenges, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011.

Overall, Peru had a score of 4.11, meaning it ranked 73 out of 139 countries, compared to 78 in the 2009 report.

This is mainly due to improvements in labor market efficiency, which improved 21 places to rank 56th, in addition to improvements in infrastructure quality – up nine places to 88th – and higher education and training, which improved five places to 76th. Read more…

Report: Peru’s wealthiest spend 24 times more on education than poorest sector

Peru’s wealthiest households spend on average about 24 times more on education than families in the lowest socio-economic level, according to a survey of more than 1,000 people in metropolitan Lima by polling firm Ipsos Apoyo.

Education expenses among the wealthiest Peruvians – socio-economic level A – totals 946 soles ($339) per month, compared to 44 soles spent by the poorest sector – socio-economic level E.

“We should note that the poorest families understand that spending on education is an investment, because now they spend 12.7 percent of their earnings on [education],” daily El Comercio reported economist Eduardo Morón as saying. Read more…

Al Gore: Kudos to Peru for democracy and economic boom; all the better to confront global warming threat

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore urged Peru on Wednesday to focus its demonstrable economic prowess on achieving clean energy technologies, not only  because the mega-diverse Andean nation is particularly vulnerable to global climate change, but because doing so simply makes good business sense.

Gore, the winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change, made his appeal during the keynote presentation for the conference sponsored by 3R3 (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle): Towards a Green Peru Environmental.

“I want to talk to you today about the climate crisis and I want to put some of these thoughts in the context of the challenges you are facing here in Peru,” Gore told the audience.

“Peru is famous for being a nation known for its mega-diversity. I know that the number of living species here is almost unparalleled in the world,” Gore said. “And of course as a citizen of the United States, I have paid attention to the growing eco-tourism that is flourishing in Peru; also the incredible variety of organic products and the unique cuisine here.”

Peru is home to 70 percent of the world’s tropical glaciers, but global warming has melted away one fifth of that ancient ice mass in just the last 35 years — reducing by 12 percent the fresh water flow to the coast, where the majority of Peruvians live, Gore noted.

Andean glaciers could be gone within 20 years, he added, threatening the water supply for 77 million people in the region, and also reducing hydro-power production, which accounts for about half of electricity generated in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, according to a 2009 World Bank report.

He also said Peru’s vast Amazon basin must be better preserved and protected because of its vital role scrubbing the atmosphere of CO2 and producing the world’s oxygen.

Gore called for creating a direct tax on carbon dioxide emissions to address the climate crisis, saying the most important solution to global warming is to put a price on CO2 through a tax that can be applied directly to the population as an incentive to create energy technology.

He congratulated Peru for its sustained economic growth under stable democratic institutions over the last decade.

“You have stayed on a steady course that has now created economic conditions that the rest of the world is noticing and admiring,” Gore said. “Perhaps not too many years from now, people will look back and talk about the Peruvian miracle.”

But he said Peru should take advantage of its economic situation, particularly during a time when much of the rest of the world is still trying to recover from global economic crisis, and apply itself to “thinking green.”

“Many, if not most companies trying to establish leadership in combating global warming, have found that clean technologies are good for their operations as they have benefited in many ways including better brands and a great reception from consumers,” he said. “One reason to adopt more modern approaches and efficient technologies is that they can simultaneously reduce both pollution and waste, while improving efficiency and profits.”

Another presenter during the conference, conservative political economist Francis Fukuyama, called on Peru to provide greater attention to addressing social challenges and reducing poverty following the country’s economic success, state news agency Andina reported.

During a conference in Lima, Fukuyama said it will be difficult for Peru and other Latin American regions to maintain high economic growth rates if it does not invest in human capital.

“The break in Peru and Latin America will be human capital, which is very important for development,” he said, adding that the quality of education has not improved at the same rate of economic growth in the region.

Fukuyama called on Peru to diversify its economy from commodities, which have been the backbone of its economic boom.

“It is a problem that has to be dealt with at the political level because the price of commodities can be affected if there is a global economic slow down, above all in China. So Peru should diversify its exports.”

Peru’s economy has seen high growth this year as it recovers from a slowdown in 2009. The International Monetary Fund is forecasting its GDP to rise by 8.3 percent in 2010, while the World Bank has predicted a 7.5 percent increase.

Excerpts from Gore’s Speech: “Thinking Green: Economic Strategy for the 21st Century”

“I have been greatly looking forward to this speech. I am very impressed with the activities that have been taking place during this conference. I have learned a lot about the activities underway in Peru  and I complement you on all of the progress that has been made here.”

“I want to talk to you today about the climate crisis and I want to put some of these thoughts in the context of the challenges you are facing here in Peru.”

“Of course I know that you feel probably very proud of the great resources that you have here. This is one of the nations in the entire world with the most diversity. Peru is famous for being a nation known for its mega-diversity. I know that the number of living species here is almost unparalleled in the world. And of course as a citizen of the United States I have paid attention to the growing eco-tourism that is flourishing in Peru. Also the incredible variety of organic products and the unique cuisine here.”

“It is not for me to say, but I certainly believe that the record of the last several years here in Peru is quite an astonishing one and a very successful one. Three presidents from three different parties, many different ministers and central bank policy and all through this long period you have stayed on a steady course that has now created economic conditions that the rest of the world is noticing and admiring. Perhaps not too many years from now people will look back and talk about the Peruvian miracle.”

“The poverty rate, while still a source of distress, has come down and exports are up and income is up and the growth rate is really very, very impressive. And the rest of the world economy, as you are keenly aware, has gone through a period of disruption with what is known as the great recession, and even though that period, Peru continued to have a positive economic growth rate.”

“This continued, sustained success is the mark of genuine and true progress, across party lines, reflecting a consensus from the main stream of the business community, the society, the university community and the people of Peru. So I certainly want to congratulate you on that.”

Education Ministry to promote Vargas Llosa works following author’s Nobel award

Peru’s Education Ministry will promote the works of acclaimed Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday, in the nation’s school system, the deputy minister of education management, Idel Vexler, said.

“The idea is to incorporate in the readings each month the works of Mario Vargas Llosa. The Reading Plan is created so that monthly they read a work selected according to the interest of the student,” Vexler told state news agency Andina.

“You can’t oblige students to read the works of authors, but rather motivate and stimulate them. I think this is the precise moment for the significant, cultural impact, national pride that the youth are going to feel when they read Vargas Llosa.” Read more…

UN: Extreme poverty declines but inequality persists

A recent report from the United Nations Development Program has found that extreme poverty in Peru has seen a strong decrease over the last decade, however widespread inequities still persist.

In 2009, 11.5 percent of Peruvians were living in extreme poverty, compared to 23 percent in 2002. However, inequalities in Peru are still prevalent particularly with regards to infrastructure, gender and ethnicity.

According to the UN’s 2010 Regional Report on Human Development for Latin America and the Caribbean, access to water in Peru is the most unequal in the region. For access to electricity, Peru is the third most unequal country in the region, only ahead of Bolivia and Honduras. Read more…

UNICEF to use information from community violence talks to protect children’s rights in Peru

UNICEF’s office in Peru is planning to use information from discussions it hosted earlier this year on community violence to improve the use of its resources and programs aimed at protecting the rights of children in the South American nation.

UNICEF launched a pilot violence prevention program in Ventanilla, a district located in the seaport city of Callao, which borders Peru’s capital Lima, that included numerous meetings on preventing youth violence, the agency said in a statement. Read more…

Report finds 78 percent of indigenous children living in poverty

A report presented by UNICEF and the national statistics and technology institute, INEI, has found that in Peru 78 percent of indigenous children between the ages of three and 17  live in poverty, compared to 40 percent for children whose first language is Spanish, state news agency Andina reported.

“The inequality is greatest among ethnic groups in the jungle where almost half the children [49%] live in conditions of extreme poverty,” said Martin Benavides, the executive director of research center Grade, which wrote the report. Read more…

Loreto regional president candidates propose indigenous-focused university

Candidates for the regional president of Peru’s north eastern Loreto department have proposed the creation of a university mainly for indigenous communities, daily La República reported.

The Intercultural University of the Amazon would work to improve the conditions of indigenous people in the department, where there are high levels of poverty.

“It would allow indigenous nationals to form their own teachers, their professionals and managers,” candidate Noe Malpartida said. “Without our own managers, it is not possible to have development. If it continues as it is, leaders will continue to send managers from [the city of] Iquitos and they won’t take into account indigenous people in the area.” Read more…

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