Stories about Portuguese from June, 2009
Angola: New highway code in action
Discussions around the changes brought by the new Angolan highway code have been taking place on the blogosphere and divided society. On one hand, the new code is seen as good because it will educate careless drivers, but some argue that the legislation contains costs that not everyone is able to meet.
Brazil: The country's largest university becomes a battlefield
For a day in June, a peaceful protest against police occupation at Brazil's largest university became a bloody confrontation for the first time since the dictatorship in the 1970s. The blogosphere reports and discusses.
Brazil: Petrobras Blog Versus Mainstream Media
In the first week of June, Brazil's giant semi-public oil company Petrobras created a free blog on Wordpress. Among the posts publicised during the blog's first days were questions and answers of journalists that were going to be part of their respective newspaper headlines and stories throughout the week. This attitude has been seen as an act of transparency by some bloggers, a threat to journalism by some newspapers and led to heated debate on the power of media and blogging.
Brazil: Amplified conversations to fight the Digital Crimes Bill
In another demonstration of cyberactivism and acvistim, Brazilian Internet users are gathering around a cause: to fight Senator Azeredo's Digital Crimes Bill. This legal project, which intends to intervene severely in the way people use the Internet in Brazil is being heavily criticized by Brazil's academic field, left-wing parties and the Internet community.
Mozambique: Attack on Presidential candidate
Mozambican bloggers respond to the attack yesterday against politician Daviz Simango, in the northern Mozambican port city of Nacala. In addition to the reactions from the blogosphere, Simango's party tweeted the attack.
Air Bus AF 447: Sorrow, lack of information and sensationalism
Blogs around the world have been sending their condolences to the families suffering the wait for any sign of the vanished Air France Airbus AF 447. Much criticism and discussion is also taking place about the disrespectful way in which the media have been covering the loss of the lives of the 228 on board, and the lack of information regarding the disaster.
Brazil: Land reform or deforestation boost for the Amazon?
Brazilian president Lula da Silva has a controversial bill that will legitimize land-grabbing in the Amazon prior to 2004 on his hands. Will the law help the forest escape further deforestation or is it going to benefit land owners only, and be the last straw for an Amazon rain forest already on its way to destruction?
Global Lullabies: The Arrorró Project
Artist Gabriela Golder from Argentina has taken it upon herself to discover, record and collect lullabies from all over the world, and to find connections among them in the Arrorró project. Rising Voices director David Sasaki wrote about the project on the 80+1 website, where he interviewed Gabriela on camera, and got authors and editors for Global Voices involved by inspiring many to record themselves singing the lullabies they remembered from their childhood.