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SPECIAL

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25 January 2012

Elizabeth Rivera, Global Voices Author and Translator

Written by Juan Arellano · Translated by Dan Cooper · Latin America

In this interview, Elizabeth Rivera, Global Voices author and translator, tells us a little bit about her life and the motives that drive her to voluntarily collaborate with Global Voices. She also discusses the Chilean student movement and other current events.

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24 January 2012

Russia: “Mikhail Dmitrievich Prokhorov: An Unpredictable Kremlin Project”

Written by Donna Welles · Eastern & Central Europe

Although some believe the 2012 Russian presidential election's outcome to be pre-scripted, the complexities surrounding Mikhail Prokhorov's candidacy should not be overlooked. Donna Welles reports.

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18 January 2012

Russia: Obama's McFaul Sworn in as U.S. Ambassador

Written by Donna Welles · Eastern & Central Europe, North America

President Obama's closest adviser on affairs of state of the Former Soviet Union and architect of the 'reset' in the U.S.-Russia relations, Michael McFaul, has officially replaced President Bush's appointment as the United States' Ambassador to Russia.

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16 January 2012

Russia: Overview of Top RuNet Trends and Events in 2011

Written by Vadim Isakov · Eastern & Central Europe

At the end of this turbulent and inspiring year, Global Voices RuNet Echo editors present you with the list of events that had a profound impact on the Russian Internet and will serve as important steps in the development of the country's online community.

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13 January 2012

Russia: Social Networks Mobilise Society

Written by Marina Litvinovich · Translated by Siân Sinnott · Russia

Facebook, the possibility to calculate numbers of protest participants, slogans from the Internet, a wide variety of gadgets - these are four new important factors in the analysis of demonstrations in Russia. Marina Litvinovich reports.

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11 January 2012

Global Voices in French: Translators' Choice 2011

Written by Claire Ulrich · Translated by Marvin Vann · Middle East & North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa

In 2011, volunteer translators at Global Voices in French translated hundreds of articles and updates on world events and we'd like to say "'Merci!". We've asked them which translation struck them most, during this epic year. Here is the French translators' selection!

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Updates about SPECIAL

1 February 2012

Russia

Ulyanovsk-based blogger Oleg Sofyin (LJ-user lis73) won a court case against Ulyanovsk governor Svetlana Openysheva, lenta.ru reports [ru]. Openysheva tried to sue Sofyin for publishing a post where he described a phone call during which someone named Azat threatened him if he will continue to post critical articles about Openysheva. Despite winning the case, blogger writes [ru] that people fear to support him because they're afraid of possible consequences.

• Alexey Sidorenko

Russia

Following Vladimir Putin's article [ru] on ‘nationality question,' Dmitry Rogozin, vice-premier and former leader of semi-nationalist party “Rodina,” had published [ru] an op-ed in which he calls nationalists who participate in post-election protests to join pro-government ranks. Oleg Kashin, Kommersant reporter, analyses [ru] it as a scary perspective for non-Russians who considered Putin a some sort of defence from radical nationalists. Publicpost.ru, multiblog, summarizes [ru] nationalists' opinions despising both Putin and Rogozin for forgetting about ethnic Russians.

• Alexey Sidorenko

Ukraine

The official websites of the President of Ukraine, the Cabinet of Ministers, the Internal Affairs Ministry, and the Party of Regions are either completely down or work with interruptions today. Some of the coordination of the collective effort to take down governmental sites, apparently in response to yesterday's shutdown of Ex.ua, seems to be taking place on the “Freedom to Ex.ua” Vkontakte page [uk, ru], which, according to Serhiy Pishkovtsiy [uk] of Watcher.com.ua blog, “gathered nearly 7,000 followers in just a few hours” today; right now, there are 19,604 followers, and this number continues to grow every minute [update: 42,126 followers on Feb. 3].

• Veronica Khokhlova

Ukraine

On Jan. 31, the Ukrainian authorities shut down Ex.ua, a popular file-sharing site. A selection of relevant tweets [en, uk, ru] is here: e.g., @sinplotnika [ru]: “The state has deprived you of bread, now it's also decided to take the show [entertainment] away.”; @Urshulia [uk]: “For me, the loss of Ex.ua is the loss of the alternative to TV. […]”; @rlasuria [ru]: “Is Ex.ua [shutdown] #SOPA tricks?)”. More details and comments - at TorrentFreak; reader Taras writes: “In Ukraine movie on BlueRay costs $40 when minimal salary is $120.” Following Ex.ua's shutdown, the Interior Ministry's site has been down for hours; @kotusenko wrote: “[…] is this some sort of hacker retaliation 4 ex.ua?”

• Veronica Khokhlova

31 January 2012

Russia

Facebook pages of some Russian media outlets (e.g., Afisha, Bolshoi Gorod, Esquire Russia, Channel 1, MTV Russia) were deluged with copy-pasted comments [ru, ar] from users who appeared to be supporters of the Syrian opposition earlier today. An excerpt from a typical comment [ru, ar]: “Syria's regime is killing people with the Russian weapons. If it hadn't been for the Russian veto, the killing of the people in Syria would have been stopped a few months ago. […]” On President Medvedev's and PM Putin's Facebook pages there are comments [en, ru, ar] from both the opponents and supporters of the Syrian regime (e.g., here and here).

• Veronica Khokhlova

24 January 2012

Russia

Creators of popular citizen crowdsourcing projects RosYama and RosPil Alexey Navalny and Georgiy Alburov launch a new project RosVybory [ru], a community of election observers. Users submit their data to the website, then project moderators apply for the necessary observer documents and send registered users to the nearby voting ballots.

• Alexey Sidorenko

23 January 2012

Russia

A committee of supporters of president Dmitry Medvedev had launched a crowdsourcing citizens-to-government feedback portal “Russia Without Fools” [ru] that allows to submit cases of officials' stupidity or abuse. So far, the cases can be submitted freely and censorship hasn't been reported. Dmitry Ternovskiy, popular photoblogger, however, notes [ru] that the title has been copied from his project “Russia Without Foolishness.” [ru]

• Alexey Sidorenko

Comments on "SPECIAL"

Russia: Who is Restricting the Russian Internet?

Strongly disagree. There's plenty of freedom, you can criticise anyone but 282 is meant to protect people from hatred. It...

Thanks so much for the translation, I find the conclusions about what Russian security consider to be "safe" particularly interesting....

good day, may i take this opportunity to stress that global logistics company like where i m working are approached...
Abdoulaye, Many citizens of our respective countries don't believe in transparency initiatives because it has not demonstrated palatable punishment...
Reading this post gave me the impression that I was dealing with the situation in Guinea. Im my own native...