Global Voices

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The world is talking, are you listening?

Locust invasion in down town Fianaratsoa, Madagascar

Locust swarmed many regions of Madagascar and even a few of its cities. This disaster comes as a result of the humid conditions[fr] that remained after cyclone Haruna's landing. The FAO states that 60% of rice production will be affected by the invasion.

Screenshot from press conference video

Medical professionals in Mozambique have announced they will strike. They consider that they were “humiliated, insulted and disdained” in their last meeting with government. This current strike follows a strike earlier this year by doctors. The video announcement is available with subtitles in English, and a number of languages.
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Off Beat China translated Chinese netizens’ reaction to Angelina Jolie's double mastectomy. Comments are mixed, some find the act courageous, some say it is over-reaction.

To counter the dropping birth rate, the Japanese government is proposing compiling a handbook with information on pregnancy and family planning to educate teenage girls on the subject. This plan to distribute the so-called “women's handbook” has been met with criticism by women's groups, which argue that the issues of pregnancy involve both men and women. More »

I don’t think this cigarette newspaper ad was necessary and it was in very poor taste.

aka_lol takes issue with a cigarette advertisement, which apparently found loopholes around the prohibitions applied to such advertising under the Tobacco Control Act.

Postage stamps featuring some of Kyrgyzstan's wild mushrooms – edible and non-edible. Images taken from ianbek.kg, used with permission.

“Never eat overripe, clammy, flabby, wormy or spoiled mushrooms,” writes Ian Claytor, translating advice from Kyrgyzstan's Department for Disease Prevention and Expertise in his blog, Postcard from Bishkek. With the mushroom picking season underway in the former Soviet state, the Ministry of Health have come up [ru] with guidelines to help pickers enjoy the pastime safely.

The cancer rate in Shanghai is 25 percent higher than the national average, over 80 people die from the disease every day, according to the Shanghai Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The pollution, food and water crisis are likely to be the cause of the increased cancer rates. Shanghaiist has more details.

The website Regionlimaaldia.com [es] shares the story [es] of 9-year old Tatiana, who:

[...] didn't hesitate and got her long hair chopped and sold it in order to buy medicines for her mother, who suffers of hypertiroidism that has caused her a tumor located on her neck.

In spite of her sacrifice, Tatiana wasn't able to buy all the necessary medicines, so she asked for help.

A visually impaired lady from Singapore wrote about the lack of public awareness on the helpfulness of guide dogs as a taxi driver refused to let in her guide dog saying “Dogs are not allowed” on taxis.

Would Singaporeans only accept blind people with their guide dogs when there is a protective Law with penalties?

Chengdu Living has an interesting post on the potential disappearance of relatively free weed smoking atmosphere in China as the police has recently started to crack down on Marijuana trade.

Cameroonian blogger Edouard Tamba posted on twitter about the first online mapping tool to tool to track insecticide resistance in mosquitoes that cause malaria : IR Mapper.

Interactive map that consolidates reports of insecticide resistance in malaria vectors onto filterable maps via irmapper.com

Rikku Dhan Subba is concerned about the growing alcoholism in Bhutan, which is creating problems in many families and societies.

Saying no to bad food will benefit the economy and the happiness index of the country.

aka_lol explains.

Carmen Weinstein, Egypt's Jewish community leader, has died at the age of 82. Zeinobia, at Egyptian Chronicles, collects reactions from the funeral service, which gathered a lot of media attention:

There is a huge surprising media presence as well security presence where those invited to the funeral have to show their IDs. I am surprised to see such media presence as I knew from a friend who is attending the funeral it was private event.

A canal in the capital smells so rancid “it can kill a nation”. Guyana-Gyal smelled it and lived to tell the tale.

Hesham Qandil, Egypt's Prime Minister, is an illustruous expert in healthcare issues as attested by, e.g. his insightful comments about ‘dirty boobs breastfeeding’. The Prime Minister delivered another priceless advice to Twitter users, this time about a healthy diet:

“Doctor Smurf prescribes cakes, pies and smurfberries as part of a healthy diet.” Screenshot from Qandil's tweet

Appalled by the “legal immunity” that the United Nations appears to have in the country's cholera epidemic, Kevin Edmonds says that it's high time Caribbean leaders speak up for Haiti.

Following the news stories of dead pigs, Beijing Cream highlights a news story on the fact that dead human bodies are regularly found in China Rivers.

The government of Lanzhou, capital of Gansu province, announced on March 28 that “around 100 bodies on average are dredged from the river in the city every year…”

The Autism Foundation of Thailand has developed a mobile application known as ‘True Autistic’ aimed at enhancing the “physical and mental development of the autistic, and provide guidance to their parents.” Since its launching, it has scored almost 200,000 downloads. According to a report written by Thanya Kunakornpaiboonsiri, there are about 370,000 autistic people in Thailand but only up to 12,000 people are able to access government health programs.

Mary Ann O'Donnell explains why doctors occupy the same hated position in China that lawyers occupy in the United States. The explanation interestingly is related to the role of the governments of the two countries.

Improving total fertility rate and labor force participation rate to increase the resident workforce over time rather than immigration-driven growth is the more appropriate way forward for Singapore

Titled ‘A Dynamic Population for a Sustainable Singapore', the opposition Workers’ Party drafts its own policy paper in response to Singapore government's Population White Paper.

Alia from China Beat blogs Chinese netizens’ reaction on Hong Kong government's new restriction which limits tourists from taking more than 1.8kg infant formula milk across border everyday. The policy is meant to stop the outflow of baby formula from Hong Kong to mainland China and prevent the shortage of local supply.

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At BiggggIdea.com (uk; “Velyka Ideya” – “a platform where people present their projects, and the community funds them”), Oleksandr Telyuk draws attention [uk] to Wheelmap.org, a crowdmapping project that allows users to evaluate and mark wheelchair accessibility of various locations worldwide. Telyuk notes that 96 percent of public places in Ukraine's capital Kyiv still lack adequate wheelchair access, and, as for the Ukrainian segment of Wheelmap.org,

[...] Most objects on the Ukrainian map are now colored gray, which means that their wheelchair accessibility hasn't been determined by anyone yet. [...]

YouTube user Masr Madaneya publishes a short video of Prime Minister Hisham Qandil's speech subtitled in English. The declaration sparked outcry and mockery in the last days after the Prime Minister claimed that breastfeeding mothers cause diarrhea to their babies with their unclean breasts.

Work for Chris Blattman in Ethiopia to assess the impact of low-skill, low-wage factory jobs on the worker’s wealth, health and politics (among other things).

Alternative medicine practitioners in Ghana have decided to invest in new technologies, Kofi Domfeh reports:”M.Y. Ventures, a natural healthcare center, has introduced a swap card technology that helps protect the privacy and data confidentiality of patients.”

Kaewmala writes about the complaint of many Thai students against the official school hair policy of “crew cut for boys and ear-lobe-length bob for girls.” Some student groups want to scrap the hair policy which is criticized as a violation of children's rights. The author added: “If Thai teachers had spent less attention to the children’s hair and more on teaching them how to think, Thai children might have done much better.”