Global Voices

English

The world is talking, are you listening?

Three brickmakers who had been arrested by the Mozambican Police while protesting peacefully with hundreds of people “at the gates of Brazilian mining giant Vale”, in Moatize on May 14, 2013, have been set free and are waiting for the verdict, NGO Justiça Ambiental informs denouncing acts of intimidation. The resettled population has been protesting for greater compensation. The Moatize coalfield is one of the largest unexplored mineral coal reserves in the world.

China Digital Times highlighted some discussion on gender gap in China. Even though the overall percentage of workingwomen is not very low, as a result of urbanization, employment rate for working-age women in urban areas fell to a new low of 60.8 percent in 2010, down from 77.4 percent 20 years earlier.

A generation of Criminals, just like a generation of Professionals, don't simply pop up. They are raised.

Trini World Views challenges everyone “who breathes fire and brimstone at criminals and the policing of criminal activity…to put that same passion into getting involved in the process [of] crime prevention.”

Prasant Naidu at Lighthouse Insights reports that after a successful start on Twitter, the Indian Army has recently joined Facebook. This is a welcome move as last year the Indian Army had issued orders asking all personnel — both officers and other ranks — to stop using social networking sites like Facebook or Orkut.

On Orsai » Blog [es], author Hernán Casciari narrates, as suspended in time, 10.6 seconds [es] that have gone down in football history and that remain in the memories of each and every person who lived through them, directly or indirectly:

Less than eleven seconds earlier, when the Argentinian player receives the ball from a team mate, clocks in Mexico indicate thirteen hours, twelve minutes and twenty seconds.

[...]

He closes his eyes. He lets himself fall forward, his body leaning, and the whole world remains silent.

The player knows he's taken forty four steps and [given] twelve taps, all of them with his left foot. He knows the move will last ten seconds and six tenths. Then he thinks it's about time to explain to everybody who he is, who he has been and who he will be until the end of time.

David Bandurski from China Media Project explained the idea of “online social management”, a set of tactics to increase the capacity for channeling online public opinion, put forward by Fu Siming, a professor at the Central Party School.

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.
More »

The Bermudian government has introduced a set of reform initiatives; Vexed Bermoothes puts forward one of his own – “mak[ing] MPs accountable for their vote.”

On the blog section [es] of Chilean newspaper El Mercurio [es], columnist Leila Guerrero analyzes the meaning of prestige [es] and notes:

Rock musicians have been smart: ‘rock star’ is one of the few jobs (we'd had to add non-Saxon public servants) where a loss of prestige means an increase of quotation. Almost for every other member of the human race, regardless of their profession, prestige, for some time now, is useful only to estimate the height where they will fall from.

More »

Does the absence of women in public spaces makes these spaces safer for women?

The above comment is made by the blogger at The Life and Times of an Indian Homemaker, who is outraged by the decision of the government of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, to ban women from pubs after 10 pm claiming that it would keep them safe.

Following Saturday's scoreless soccer game that catapulted Moscow's CSKA club to its fourth Russian Premier League title, the team's fans clashed with riot troops in downtown Moscow. Police detained 140 people [ru], later releasing all but two. Bloggers posted photos to LiveJournal here, here, and here [ru], alleging police brutality.

Police “detain” a soccer fan, Moscow, 18 May 2013, photo by Sergey Danilov, posted to his LJ.

Rudi Putra initiated an online petition asking the Indonesian government to block the expansion of mining and palm oil activities in Aceh and to protect the country's remaining rainforest. More than one million people around the world have already signed the petition:

I live and work in the last place on Earth where endangered orangutans, rhinos, elephants, and tigers still roam together — but it'll be bulldozed to bits unless our President hears our call and steps in to save this unique habitat.

Another two speakers [pt] have been confirmed for the event TEDxSão Tomé, in the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, in 20 June. Mark Richard Shuttleworth [en], a South African founder of the company Canonical Ltd, which develops free software like Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Xubuntu and Lubuntu and Guilherme Alves Luís Vaz de Carvalho [pt], an artist from São Tome that composed the song “Frutinha da Sorte” for the film “Frutinha do Equador”.

China's state-run People’s Daily ran a piece titled “The Post-80′s Generation is Dispirited: Early Decline Cause for Alarm[zh],” arguing that China’s youth born after 1980 face “spiritual confusion and a loss of identity” despite better material living conditions. In response, social media celebrity and social critic “Zuoyeben“[zh] wrote an essay on the real cause of this issue. The essay, which reveals different social problems in today's China, has found resonance among many Weibo users. Tea Leaf Nation has translated the essay.

To mark the tragic anniversary of the Tivoli incursion and the lives that were lost there, Jamaican bloggers are uniting to draw attention to the scourge of extra-judicial killings in Jamaica and a police force seemingly out of control and beyond restraint.

Active Voice is gearing up to comment on police brutality for Blog Action Day next week.

Yari Yari Ntoaso is an international conference on literature by women of African ancestry. You can follow in on Twitter using #YariYari hashtag or on Kinna Reads blog.

On 17 May 2013 Australian blogger and self-styled ‘global nomad’ More Atlitude posted a lengthy and detailed post in response to “Australia’s decision yesterday to excise its mainland from the migration zone” this week. He argues that it

essentially reinforces a horrible, horrible policy of enforced detention for legal (I stress, again and again and again, people, LEGAL, good grief do I need to paint it neon and string it with lights?) asylum-seekers.

Rituals, reflections, poetic “assaults”… From May 17 to 23, 2013, the first Latin American Congress of Community Living Cultures [es] will invade the streets of La Paz, Bolivia. The city will host government representatives from Brazil and Colombia, along with more than one thousand activists.
More »

A South Korean LGBT rights group, Rainbow Action, staged a protest at Seoul Plaza on May 17, 2013, calling on the government to pass the anti-discrimination law. A video of the protest was posted on the Youtube.

A civic statement on Col·lectiu Emma (@CollectiuEmma)'s blog criticizes the way the Spanish government is dealing with the political situation in the region of Catalonia, where 55 % of the population favors independence [ca] from Spain, according to an official poll. The statement explains the “strategy of fear” and other “hostile” arguments, and claims for “a friendly separation, preferably under international supervision and with external support for both parties.” The post is available in English, Spanish, German, French, Arabic, Russian, Portuguese, Italian and Dutch.

The Ministry of Communication of Angola threatens to suspend the public license of the Radio Despertar station and of the Folha 8 newspaper, despite the measure being unconstitutional. The government says they encourage public disorder. The announcement was made on Wednesday, May 15, as reported the Voz da América [pt] website. Some owners of the Radio have ties with the main opposition party UNITA [en]. In 2012, the police confiscated computers of the Folha 8.

Hong Wrong rounded up Hong Kong citizens’ responses to the city's security chief's comment on the soaring of rape cases. The police head, Lai Tung-Kwok, told women to cut down on drinking in a press conference.

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.

Yueran Zhang from Tea Leaf Nation reviews the Chinese petition system and discusses directions for future reform:

Ongoing reforms should include the enhancement of the institutional powers of bureaus of letters and visits. On the other hand, the citizens flooding the petitioning offices, which are considered a last resort, reveal the ineffectiveness of other channels for hearing complaints and grievances. Enhancement and clarification of the roles of the People’s Congress, NGOs, the arbitration system and the judiciary branch could lessen the burden on the petitioning system.

Kenyans activists occupied the Kenyan parliament yesterday to protest against attempts by Members of Parliament to demand more money. The activists have been using the hashtag occupyparliament on Twitter.

Ukrainian blogger Olena Bilozerska's User Winner prize in the Bobs 2013 Best Blog Ukrainian nomination has been revoked, writes [ru] Mustafa Nayyem, the Ukrainian member of the Bobs 2013 jury, on his Facebook page, linking [ru] to the official statement [uk] posted on the Bobs 2013 website. The scandal (more on it in this GV text) seems far from being over in Ukraine, however, as many netizens are displeased with the decision. Nayyem's Facebook announcement has generated over 150 comments so far, many of them critical of the contest organizers in general and Nayyem in particular. In one of the few English-language comments in that thread, Andreas Umland, a Kyiv-based German political scientist, writes:

More »

South Korean civil rights group Fight For Voters’ Rights (FFVR) filed a petition to the United Nations requesting them to investigate suspected election fraud. A series of investigations into South Korean spy agency's illegal involvement in the latest presidential election are still underway in the country. 

After Kunming's Anti-PX protest on May 4, 2013, local government has tried to stop further protests by sending text messages, “visiting” protest organizers, and censoring information online. East by Southeast has more details.