This performance was remarkable, amazing, unique. Beardyman the famous beatboxer got together on stage with one of the world´s top violinists, Hillary Hahn. The result is in this video. Enjoy.

With no discredit to all the great tech conferences in Europe, including Le Web, SIME, MMF, Google and Zeitgeist – DLD is simply the best. DLD is fun, a perfect combination of content, networking and entertainment. You have to give credit to the Germans. They are the best organized people in Europe. And, it shows in this event where every single detail seems to be thought out – from the custom made espressi to the Mercedes 450HP that take you around everywhere you want to go. Flawless.

So here are some pictures from my conversation with Rene Oberman CEO of DT and of the Hispanic Internet Panel that I moderated (the links contain the live blogging that went on)

And here´s a simple video that I made with some moments. The end at the speaker´s lounge in which Joichi Ito, David Kirkpatrick, Mark Zuckerberg and my son Tom appear is in Spanish

Here´s a Valleywag article on Skipping Davos that I found interesting. Other years most in the DLD crowd went straight to Davos, this year some went home or headed for TED.

I am at a panel at DLD with the vague name of telling stories. There is Fernando Sulichin the Argentine film maker in a weird panel blend with my friend Loic LeMeur and Valleywag feeder Julia Allison. The first comment on this panel is that people whose life is on the Internet seem to live in a separate world from people whose life is in the movie industry even though they both tell stories. Bloggers like Loic and Julia and myself, we tell stories, and so does Fernando when he makes a movie, and so do people who write books. But the way we tell these stories is fundamentally different. When bloggers speak, people reply. When movie directors film, people watch. Fernando has a depth in talking about subjects that Loic and Julia don´t have because you can tell that Fernando has TIME in his life and Loic and Julia do not. Fernando is not on Twitter, Fernando is not checking his friends updates on Facebook, Fernando is not on Netvibes with a million blogs. Fernando´s next story is the life of Jesus as a revolutionary with Tim Robbins acting in it. I don´t even know Fernando, but I sometimes get the feeling that people who want to tell a good story, in depth, should not be on the Internet more than an hour per day.

Yesterday Nina and I flew to Essaouira. It was great flight to pilot because we flew alongside the snowed Atlas mountains. At Essaouira, a beautiful Moroccan town in the Atlantic coast I was surprised to find out that at some point the city was 40% Jewish. Doing some research, I found these two Wikipedia articles that I link to. One is about Essaouira itself and the other is about the history of Moroccan Jews.

Modern Essaouira has a fusion French Moroccan flavor that works beautifully. There are some negatives, especially how dirty the beach is. It is surprising that with the high level of unemployment in Morocco they don´t clean the beach of plastic debris. The issue of uncollected garbage seems to have something to do with a lack of education of the people of Essaouira who throw garbage around as they walk. Interestingly, compared to my native Argentina (a country that ranks high on cleanliness), where crime is very common, Morocco seem to be mostly crime free at least as far as tourists are concerned. Coming from Latin America, I find that Morocco, and India for that matter, are a proof that poverty, inequality and unemployment do not necessarily lead to crime. In general I think that tolerance to crime or pollution are cultural issues and not clearly related to economic conditions. Morocco seems to be a country where people and places are extremely clean from the door in but that the moment you step outside, the area is seen as nobody´s property and then it is also seen as there for all to abuse. The strongest example I have seen of this is the entrance to one of the best hotels in Marrakesh, The Villa des Orangiers. The hotel exterior looks like a shanty town. The interior is one of the nicest I have ever seen.

But environmental issues aside, Essaouira is a magical place that I want to return to. The people are very nice (except when you try to take a picture of them which I still need to understand why), the food is great and the light and the landscape is unbelievable. We had a day of passing clouds and the different tones of off whites and blues made the whole experience memorable. The combination of Marrakesh, Essaouira by the sea and the Atlas Mountains makes this part of the world a must in the itinerary of the global traveler.

Nina and I arrived this afternoon in Marrakech, less than a two hour flight from Madrid. As you can see from our pictures Morocco maybe close to Spain but culturally it is pretty removed. Marrakech looks much more like Damascus, than say, Malaga which is much closer. While these days of the Gaza war have been tough for those in the conflict and also rocky in my Spanish and English blogs where a lot of disagreement took place I felt that these pictures would be a good counterpoint. And I do recommend to my readers to come to Marrakesh, especially at this time of the year, the weather is perfect, during the day it is around 18 degrees, very sunny, and there are such few tourists!

Here´s a slide show on Marrakesh

This is a post I wrote a month ago and forgot to publish! Here it goes.

Tonight I helped my 16 year old daughter, Isabella, study early 20th century Indian history. She has a test tomorrow. As a result, I ended up getting really into the whole issue regarding the current Afghani/Pakistani border region, which used to belong to the northeastern province of India, and which the Viceroy George Curzon tried to run, unsuccessfully.

If you study the conflict between the Russians and the English over control of what is today Afghanistan (The Great Game), and see how both parties failed completely in the Pashtun Pakistani/Afghani region, you realize that we, meaning the Americans and Europeans in Afghanistan today, have not learned too much. What I read of this Wikipedia article made a big impression on me, especially this bit, which is referring to when the English fought the Pashtuns:

The British, who had captured most of rest of South Asia without significant problems, faced a number of difficulties here. The first war with the Pashtuns resulted in a devastating defeat, with just one soldier coming back alive (out of a total of 14,800 people).

That’s right. They sent 14,800 soldiers to fight the Afghani Pashtuns…and only one returned.
From what I’ve read it looks like 100 years have passed, but little has changed. Trying to control Afghanistan/Pakistan continues to be mission impossible. You can also understand how it can be that those behind the terrible Mumbai attacks came from Pakistan, but that Pakistan in itself is not responsible for them, because for a whole century the Pashtun tribal region has been a land of fanatical warriors (the Taliban among others). They not only cause many problems around them, but getting involved with them appears to be the equivalent of falling into a black hole of death. This region includes parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. I will cite an article by the expert María Amparo Tortosa Garrigós, published in my foundation’s online bulletin.

The data show that there has been an increase in terrorism since the initiation of the Anglo-American coalition’s combat operations. There were no suicide attacks from 2001 to 2003, three in 2004, seventeen in 2005, and in 2006 the figure shot to 124, resulting in 4,400 victims. What does this peak coincide with? With the spread of said operations to the southeast (Operation Medusa in Kandahar during the summer of 2006, and to Helmand in March 2007 with Operation Achilles). We must add to this that in 2007 there were 137 suicide attacks resulting in 6,000 casualties (of which 210 were coalition soldiers and 700 Afghans). In June alone of this year, 90 civilians died in ten days from collateral damage. Up to this point, there have already been 4,300 civilian victims in 2008.

I suppose there are two reasons to be presently occupying Afghanistan, with the occupation, of course, being led by the United States. One is that in Afghanistan itself, atrocities are not being committed against women, children, or any of its residents in general, although we are all aware of the horrors and abuses that the Taliban (with a majority being Pashtuns) committed. But frankly, although I understand why human rights issues in Afghanistan worry us, to me it doesn’t seem like it would be easy to explain to an American parent that his or her child died defending the rights of Afghan girls to go to school. The other reason to invade is because if we leave, Al Qaeda will come back, and from there export terrorism, like it did in the past by controlling the government. This justification is more reasonable and supported by history because that’s exactly what Osama Bin Laden did: he took control of the government and attacked the West. It is no secret that Barack Obama intends to shift the war on terror to Afghanistan, and indeed he has been calling for such a shift for over a year. In fact, it looks like, under Obama, the number of troops on the ground in Afghanistan will double by as early as next summer. But, as I learned while helping Isabella, the cost of them staying there will be very high. Aside from the fact that these additional troops must be budgeted for during this very serious economic crisis, this year has already been the deadliest for American and NATO troops in Afghanistan. What’s more, I would say that the possibility of really reforming Afghanistan and transforming it into something resembling a democracy is very slight. I often wonder if, instead of trying to stick with the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, it wouldn’t be simpler to have more border and internal security.

I will finish by recommending an article by professor Zidane Zeraoui, also published in my foundation’s bulletin, which addresses the topic of what the government of India can do now that it is known that the Mumbai attackers came from Pakistan. An English version may be published in the near future.