Slashgeo

The Map Room links to a Kottke entry (with screenshots) about satellite imagery used to spot human rights abuses. From the American Association for the Advancement of Science article: "The images, analyzed by the AAAS staff, show two views of the settlement of Porta Farm, located just west of the Zimbabwean capital of Harare. The first, an archived image from June 2002, shows an intact settlement with more than 850 homes and other buildings; an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 people lived in Porta Farm at the time. The second photo, taken by satellite on 6 April this year, shows that the settlement has been leveled. The pictures were released Wednesday 31 May as central evidence in a report compiled by the international secretariat of Amnesty International in London and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), based in Harare. The report, “Shattered Lives: The Case of Porta Farm,” views the destruction of the settlement and the forced relocation of its residents as emblematic of a broad campaign by the government of President Robert Mugabe to repress political opposition."

Declan Butler allows us to view Reporters Without Borders's data on press freedom in Google Earth. From the Reporters Without Borders blog: "“Unfortunately nothing has changed in the countries that are the worst predators of press freedom,” the organisation said, “and journalists in North Korea, Eritrea, Turkmenistan, Cuba, Burma and China are still risking their life or imprisonment for trying to keep us informed. [...]" Update: 10/30 20:28 GMT by S : Story promoted to main page.

Ogle Earth links to a project documenting humanitarian crisis with Google Earth with all the professionalism required. From the site: "Since early 2006, SHR has been working with partner organizations to collect high-resolution satellite imagery and develop other data to document or understand human rights violations. A selection of this imagery (QuickBird and Ikonos) and other data is provided below as Google Earth layers. These layers were produced using the regionator code made available by Google." These crisis are covered: Chad and Darfur (Sudan), Lebanon and Israel, and Zimbabwe.

Ogle Earth discuss the launch by Amnesty International of their Eyes on Darfur project, which uses satellite imagery as evidence. Here's the Eyes on Darfur website. OE shares this with us: "Every initiative on Darfur is a worthy initiative. I would love, however, for this weeks-old data from Darfur to be made available in an open, georeferenced formats, in time series and on a much wider scale, so that GIS volunteers really can monitor villages for change. I'd gladly "adopt" one of the 1,600 villages and monitor it, given the data. I also think Flash is not the best visualization tool for geospatial data [...]" OE also informs us Beirut imagery has been updated to reflect the situation after the 2006 Lebanon War.

I just stumbled onto this world map of the Corruption Perceptions Index 2006. From the Transparency International website: "Transparency International commissioned Prof. Dr J. Graf Lambsdorff of the University of Passau to produce the CPI table. For information on data and methodology, please consult the frequently asked questions and the CPI methodology or www.icgg.org." From the site, less corruption perceived in Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, Denmark and Singapore, while at the other end of the spectrum, Haiti, Myanmar, Iraq, Guinea, Sudan and Congo.

The International Charter "Space and Major Disasters" founded by the European Space Agency has been activated for the heavy flooding in Fredericton (Canada) and the Cyclone Nargis in Yangon (Myanmar). Images are available for both events here for Fredericton and Yangon.

To follow up on the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar there are two organisations that have published Earth Observation data on their web site: ITHACA and DLR.