The Times Online obtained three videos recorded by mobile phone of two men and one woman being tortured in Chechnya.

In one of the videos, a shock treatment was delivered to a soldier, in apparent retribution for the theft of some oil that the victim is accused of having sold illegally.

“We’ll show you what happens to those caught stealing oil,” yells the man administering the shocks. “We’re not going to kill you or let you live. We’ll keep you in this state for two months until you’re neither a man nor a woman.”

"The video and two others, featuring a man being beaten with a stick as he sits on a bed and a woman being kicked on the ground where she is lying tied to a flagpole, are believed to show forces controlled by Kadyrov, who was rewarded for his loyalty to Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, in April when he was made leader of war-torn Chechnya.

Now that mobile phones with tiny video cameras have become common in Chechnya, the perpetrators of abuses often record them and use the footage to boast about their exploits to their fellow militia men. The videos are passed on to ordinary citizens in what human rights campaigners claim is a deliberate tactic to intimidate the population."

Via NewsTrust

Truthout informed us a couple of days ago that collective action via mobile communication technology worked with very good results in stopping a chemical plant with a high polluting potential being build near a resident area, 10 miles from the center of Xiamen.

Paraxylene, the chemical that would have been produced, has irritating effects in people in case of short-term exposure and it can seriously affect the nervous system and may cause death in case of long-term exposure. Chinese officials became more sensitive and active towards environment hazards after confronting problems with polluted lands and waters on the background of industrial facilities being built with a speed greater than the real economic demand.

This case is one among many others to prove that mass communication technologies can ignite and mobilize population efforts and protests in the public sector and articulate them with institutional and governmental action.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nokia , the world's biggest mobile phone maker, is investing in Africa to make the region its next big wireless market, Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said on Friday.

Word is coming out of China of the closing of a major plant in Xiamen. Zhong Xiaoyong, a freelance writer in Xiamen who opposed the plant described the smart mob action as caused by: “a potent cocktail of public worry about pollution, modern communications, and increasingly assertive citizens.” He was quoted in a Reuters report which includes this as one version of millions of text messages that have built pressure to close the plant: "When this massive toxic chemical product goes into production, that will mean an atomic bomb has been released over all Xiamen island," . . .

The 24.com news story about the closing begins:

Beijing - Work on a billion-dollar petrochemical plant in a major Chinese port has been put on hold following a text message campaign by protestors angry about industrial pollution, state media said on Wednesday.

Citizens sent nearly one million cellphone text messages urging the Xiamen government to abort work on a massive paraxylene (PX) plant because of the feared health and environmental impacts, Xinhua news agency said.

Link: Government restricts SMS news services

The government has been restricting some SMS news services and blocking certain media websites, said journalists and opposition parties. “SMS news service via mobile networks are facing a legal challenge, and I call on the government to make laws to issue licenses to the companies who want to offer this service,” said Chairman of Yemeni Journalists Syndicate, Nasr Taha Mustafa. Mustafa asked the Ministry of Information to settle the problem of the restricted SMS services with al-Nass Mobile and Without Chains Mobile, in accordance with the journalism law.

Looks like another government getting jittery about freedom of speech, following on from the news a month or so ago that Iran is planning to filter MMS traffic.

Malaysia's top mobile phone operator Maxis has tied up with the Philippines' Globe Telecom to introduce a new mobile international money transfer service called M-money (but this is not a first, as they claim - see links below), enabling thousands of Filipino workers in Malaysia to remit money to their families back home. Associated Press reports.

"Under the system, Maxis customers can wire up to 500 ringgit ($143) per transaction to Globe subscribers in the Philippines, who can retrieve the money at Globe's 6,000 outlets, the statement said.

Maxis customers must cash in the money with Maxis before making any overseas remittance and are charged only a five ringgit ($1.47) service fee per transaction, less than half the fee that bank charges, it added."

A Chinese city has halted construction of a chemical plant after residents sent more than 1 million mobile phone text messages protesting possible pollution dangers, news reports said Thursday, reports Cellular News.

"The plant was to be located 10 miles from the center of Xiamen, a center for Taiwanese and Hong Kong investment. The nearest homes were about a mile away, according to news reports.

"The city government has listened to the opinions expressed and has decided, after careful deliberation, that the project must be re-evaluated," a deputy mayor, Ding Guoyan, was quoted as saying."