Global Voices

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The world is talking, are you listening?

‘It’s kind of absurd to me that we’re even having this discussion. The God I serve says we are to love one another.’

Breezeblog comments on Bermuda's “pass[ing] [of] the amendment to the Human Rights Act making it illegal to discriminate against someone because of their sexual orientation.”

Spanish singer and artist Miguel Bosé, currently visiting Peru, became a trending topic on Twitter with the hashtag #PreguntasParaMiguelBose [questions for Miguel Bosé] when he refused to answer if he had tried pisco sour and cebiche during a press conference.
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Belize is facing a difficult balancing act when it comes to determining the limits of environmental and cultural conservation.

Kevin Edmonds at nacla blog explains.

We are destined to fail at our tourism efforts because the stakeholders, decision makers and governmental associations have no understanding of the new media landscape.

Travel blogger Rishi Sankar takes the Trinidad and Tobago tourism body to task for its “lack of recognition of social media’s impact on tourism.”

The whole process is managed and legitimated by a whole army of high-level psychologists and pedagogues in the name of the common Good.

Erasmo Calzadilla blogs at Havana Times about the state of education in Cuba.

Following the wave of protests against adjustments to transportation and public spending before the 2014 World Cup, protesters outside the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro were reprimanded by the Military Police, who used tear gas against people who had taken refuge in Quinta da Boa Vista City Park, as shown here in this video. An audio recording by a radio host who was covering the Sunday game between Mexico and Italy on June 16 was widely shared under the hashtag #ProtestosRJ (protestsRJ).

WordPress communities in Japan celebrated the 10th anniversary of the open source blogging platform. Events were held in Sapporo, Kagawa, Tokyo, Chiba and Osaka. There are 40 local WordBench [ja] groups, Japan's WordPress local community directory is powered by BuddyPress. Naoko Takano blogs more about the events in Japan.

WordPress 10th Anniversary Party in Sakai, Osaka
(BY-NC-SA/3.0)

In São Paulo, publisher makes an open call and prints out posters free of chager for Bus Fare manifestants. Photo by Meli-Melo on Facebook.

The publishing and design studio Meli-Melo decided to help out in the protests against rise in bus fares in São Paulo, offering their equipment to print out posters free of charge. An open call for page lay out was launched on Friday, 14 June [pt], on Facebook, and protesters replied quickly. Few hours later, several posters were printed and it is now ready for the protest scheduled for Monday, 17 June.

Claire Ulrich moderating the workshop “What role for bloggers and citizen journalists within newsrooms?” at 4M 2013 Montpellier (photo by Suzanne Lehn)

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The media mogul Rupert Murdoch has filed for divorce from his Chinese-born wife Wendi Deng. Deng is his third wife and they have two daughters. The divorce has prompted a wave of speculation online that she married Americans with ulterior motives of climbing the social letter and getting richer. ChinaSmack looks at the online reactions.

On the video from [his son's] wedding, Emomali Rahmon shows himself as a real, normal man – he has fun, dances with joy, and encourages everyone else to do the same. Don’t all our men behave the same way at their sons’ weddings?

After lengthy debates, the parliament in Kyrgyzstan has adopted legislation banning young women from travelling abroad without parental consent. On Registan.net, Alisher Abdug'oforov suggests that the new legislation not only violates the country's constitution, but is also unlikely to solve any problems it is designed to address.

Freedom of the Press worldwide in 2013. Source: Reporters without Borders on Facebook

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A woman leaves an airport and feels naked in the face of the looks that every man throws at her on the way out. All women have experienced this to the extent that it seems normal. An article entitled What a Woman Feels [pt] by Cláudia Regina sheds light on this day to day life of a woman, from the sexist comments and inconveniences she must put up with, to the violence, family oppression, and society that she has to endure throughout her life.

China tightened its media's use of information from foreign press in April, 2013, in a move to exert stronger control over domestic newspapers and TV broadcasts. Ironically, Chinese media in recent days have increased their quotations from foreign press as the Snowden story unfolds. China Media Project has the details.

Local media reported last Thursday that North Korea's state TV, Korean Central Television started real-time Facebook broadcasting, citing official sources. However, North Korea Tech blog listed several things that don’t quite add up. 

Elaine Díaz at the Global Voices Summit 2012, Nairobi, Kenya. Photo by @Rezwan.

According to the New York Times’ The Lede blog, Global Voices Cuba contributor Elaine Díaz “may be the most important Cuban dissident you’ve never heard of.” Elaine, currently on a visit to the US, is profiled in a June 11 post titled “Cuban Blogger Who Reveres Castro Pushes for Reform”.

On the day of the football match between Peru and Colombia for the qualifying stage for the Brazil 2014 Football World Cup, a well-known Peruvian artist wrote [es] “fision” instead of “afición” (“supporters” in Spanish) in a tweet where she was repeating a cheer that can be translated as: “Peru is the champion, Peru is the champion, this is what the supporters are yelling”.

The spelling mistake became a trending topic on Twitter with hashtags #fision and #Tula.
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“Lavish Budget but poor plan?” An ordinary citizen posts comments and analysis on the recent Bangladesh budget for the financial year 2013-2014.

The National Gallery of Jamaica Blog is excited about an upcoming exhibition of children's art, which will highlight “the children’s unique responses to questions about their curiosities and the diverse urges of their developing imaginations.”

Cairo..The city of a thousand pillars? Photograph from CairoObserver Facebook page. The red lines show buildings which obscure the minerates of mosques which is a signature of the Cairo horizon being lost to new development

Cairobserver calls [ar] people in Egypt through Facebook and Twitter [ar] to demonstrate in front of governorate buildings, who are responsible for managing the city, across Egypt to call for an end to destroying and deforming historical cities.
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In Barbados, where religion is high on people's list of priorities, Notes From A Small Rock is considering taking a bush bath.

Marlene Bandeira, or as she is better known Nely Strong [pt], has been added to the TEDxSão Tomé [en] speaker line up. Rapper, she uses local slangs to portray São Tomé and Príncipe [en] society in her lyrics. Recently, Nely released the song ‘Mordomia’ – a hit in the islands – with the rapper Tigre T. The TEDxSão Tomé happens in 20 June, 2013 and is open for pre-registration [en] until this Monday.

Lighthouse Insights reports that WeChat, the mobile messaging service from the Chinese Internet giant Tencent has targeted Indian market highlighting its Voice Chat feature and by launching a massive ad campaign involving Bollywood stars.

Amical Wikimedia, the association that promotes Viquipedia, the Catalan Wikipedia, has got a chapter of its own within the international structure of the Wikimedia Foundation. This recognition comes after a five-year-long discussion to be recognized as representative of a unique language and culture, as previous criteria required chapters to represent states. Now they will have the right to share experiences with other countries and access the funds raised through readers’ donations. This announcement arrives at a time when Catalonia is involved in a debate about becoming independent from Spain.

As younger generation shows a serious lack of historical knowledge even to the point of calling [ko] an iconic democratic movement a rebel, South Korean net users set up an online petition page [to] calling the government to make history a mandatory subject in Korean SAT. Only two days have passed so far, but it has gathered more than 19,000 signatures.

Mighty African explains how he discovered a tool to help him use Ghanaian characters on Android phones:

Earlier today, I was looking to type something in Twi on my phone so I needed ɛ and ɔ characters so I proceeded to Nyamfowa.com to copy them and use. And then it dawned on me, the Kasahorow folks were working on a keyboard to allow typing these Ghanaian characters on Android.

On Thursday, June 6, in the center of Skopje, the Movement Against Police Brutality will mark two years since the murder of Martin Neshkovski, which sparked massive grassroots protests in Macedonia in the summer of 2011. The Facebook event [mk] about the memorial service states:

On Thursday, June 6, at 11 AM, we shall visit the crime scene and light a symbolic candle to remind us that we allowed ourselves to lose a young life. May he be remembered!

During the gathering the “Stop Police Brutality” Movement will hold a press conference to present activities marking its second anniversary. Additionally, we shall express support for the Turkish people who mount bloody resistance to police brutality these days. [...]

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Citizens can now “co-sponsor” and track progress on legislation via their Facebook profiles thanks to a new initiative of the U.S. Office of the House Majority Leader.

Several netizens tweeted about the second presidential debate and made laugh of candidates. Potkin Azarmehr tweeted “Pres Candidates may be asked to play musical chairs next.”