7 Billion

Here's a thought provoking video from National Geographic about our global population growth.

Focus Returns to Haiti for Charities on YouTube

Cross-posted from the YouTube Trends Blog

Today marks the one year anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti, and "haiti earthquake" is among our top spiking search terms today. In the past 7 days, nearly 4,000 Haiti-related videos have been posted to the site (over 1,000 in the past 24 hours).

Disney actress, singer, and UNICEF ambassador Selena Gomez posted the most-viewed clip so far, advocating for the charity's efforts in Haiti. (The message she posted a year ago went on to draw over 600,000 views.)



In addition to the news organizations, which have posted numerous reports, updates have been provided by large organizations Amnesty International, American Red Cross, and Unicef.

In the playlist below, we've collected a few of the many videos posted in the past few days to our "People & Blogs" category. The videos depict thee breadth of relief efforts taking place on the smaller scale, varying from a little boy in the U.S. who's been saving up for a donation to footage from service trips in villages on the ground. They also show some of the different fundraising strategies being employed on YouTube at this time:

Flooding in Queensland, Australia

Flash flooding in Queensland, Australia continues to uproot countless suburban towns. The floods, which are described as behaving like a mini-Tsunami, have already claimed 10 lives and led to tens of thousands of evacuations.

The footage below, captured by YouTube users, provides a first-hand account of the flood's disruptive power. To read more click here.

NASA Moment of Silence

"Moment of silence" was a top Google search Monday, and the one observed by NASA Mission Control, held for the victims of the tragic shooting in Arizona, was among the most memorable. A touching reflection was led by Commander Scott Kelly, brother-in-law to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, from aboard the Space Station.

Cross-posted from YouTube Trends

The YouTube Interview with Salman Taseer, assassinated yesterday in Islamabad

Last month, during a business and media development visit to Pakistan, we sat down with Salman Taseer, the influential governor of the Punjab province, to talk about the future of his country. Today, Taseer was assassinated by one of his bodyguards in while getting into his car in a market in Islamabad. Though it's unclear yet whether his bodyguard acted alone or was part of a larger plot, sources say the assassination was motivated by Tasser's opposition to Pakistan's blasphemy laws.

A high profile leader within the Pakistan People's Party, Taseer talked with us about the world's view of Pakistan, and what he wanted to do to put forth a more moderate picture of his country.



An avid Twitterer, Taseer spoke out to appeal for the pardon of a Christian woman who'd received a death sentance for reportedly speaking against the Prophet Mohammed.

"I was under huge pressure sure 2 cow down b4 rightist pressure on blasphemy. Refused. Even if I'm the last man standing," he tweeted at the end of last month.

Queensland Residents Post Flood Footage

This post is cross-posted from YouTube Trends and was originally written by Kevin Allocca.

Major flooding in Queensland, Australia recently has now led to large evacuations and over a billion dollars in likely damages. We've collected some of the footage posted in the last few days of the flooding from residents in cities like Dalby, Bundaberg, and Chinchilla. You can view them here:



(Use the arrows to navigate between videos or watch them all here)

Happy Holidays from the PM and President of Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Presiden Shimon Peres took to YouTube to wish Happy Holidays to all.





We at CitizenTube wish you a Happy Holidays as well!

Veterans for Peace - Civil Disobedience to End War

War veterans chained themselves to the front gates of the White House to display their disapproval of the President's support of war in Afghanistan. Whether you ultimately agree with their argument or not, their backgrounds and convictions deserve everyone's consideration:

A year later, and Russia's "YouTube Cops" meet sad fates

There's an important post by Alexey Sidorenko over on Global Voices following up on the story of the Russian police officers who took to YouTube a year ago to tell the world of the corruption they'd observed within the force.

It all started with Alexey Dymovskiy, who posted two lengthy videos to YouTube last November pointing out the corruption in the Russian police force, going so far as to call his superiors "ignorant, reckless, boorish and dim-witted." A half a million views later, Dymovskiy's videos were getting played all over the international media, and several other Russian officers followed his footsteps onto YouTube. However, as Sidorenko reports, most of those who published videos have been fired, jailed, and/or beaten.

Writes Sidorenko:

It's not that corruption in the Russian police was unknown before Dymovskiy's video. It was the medium he chose for telling this open secret that attracted so much attention. The full disclosure of the identity of the messenger was an essential part of the message, and it introduced a new form of citizen-to-government public communication: an online video address to the president or prime minister.

Read more here.

Here's one of Dymovskiy's original videos:

Managing Director of the IMF on the Economic Recovery

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, spoke to Reuters' Chrystia Freeland this past week about the economic recovery in Europe. The conversation ranged from whether the economic recovery is uneven in Europe to his thoughts on running for the French presidency to the importance of the United States in the global economic system.

Data visualizations + holograms = Awesome

Here at Citizentube we've developed a bit of a friend-crush on data visualizations. Using data to tell interesting stories is something our friends on the Google Zeitgeist team did effectively and is something we're currently working on with our newly launched YouTube Trends (more to come on that later).

In the video below Professor of Global Health (and TED favorite) Hans Rosling uses data to show trends over time in health and wealth across the world. While you may have seen graphs and charts about this issue before, promise you've never seen it presented like this:

Inside London's Student Protests

Students in the United Kingdom protested -- sometimes violently -- in London yesterday into the evening over a hike in the maximum tuition fee resulting in 12 officers and 43 protesters injured, according to the BBC. Many of the students and bystanders were carrying cameras and capture different perspectives on the day's events. We've collected an assortment of them in the playlist below and more have been continuously uploaded throughout the day.