Satellite Imagery Captures Settlement’s Destruction

While governments fret about losing security at the hands of publicly available, high-resolution satellite imagery, it’s worth remembering that revealing things that governments would rather leave hidden is frequently a very good thing. Last week, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as part of a pilot program to explore the use of geospatial technology in human rights campaigns, released images showing the destruction of the Porta Farm settlement in Zimbabwe. Here are images from before (June 2002) and after the settlement of 6,000 to 10,000 people was razed in June 2005 as a reprisal against political opponents of the regime:


(Image credit: Copyright © 2006 DigitalGlobe, Inc. All rights reserved.)

Via Kottke. See previous entry: A Google Maps Update.

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