Global Voices » Quick Reads

Trinidad & Tobago: “Ordinariology”

Janine Mendes-Franco — Wed, 22 May 2013 01:13:08 +0000

The backlash, growing quietly by the second, apparently, against the Differentology video isn't that it's a bad video, it's that it's the wrong class of video entirely for the song.

Mark Lyndersay explains why he thinks the video for the most transformative soca song of the year is simply ordinary.

Jamaica: “Good Gay” vs. “Bad Gay”

Janine Mendes-Franco — Tue, 21 May 2013 18:05:42 +0000

In this new discourse of the Good versus the Bad Gay, that what is being policed is class as much as sexuality.

Under the Saltire Flag explains.

BarCamp Battambang 2013

Mong Palatino — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:18:25 +0000

BarCamp Battambang 2013 in Cambodia

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Mozambique Mining Protest Ends in Arrests

Sara Moreira — Tue, 21 May 2013 08:19:34 +0000

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.

Gender Gap Widens in Chinese Cities

Oiwan Lam — Tue, 21 May 2013 04:38:01 +0000

China Digital Times highlighted some discussion on gender gap in China. Even though the overall percentage of working women 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.

Trinidad & Tobago: It Takes a Village

Janine Mendes-Franco — Tue, 21 May 2013 01:42:19 +0000

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.”

Indian Army is now on Facebook

Rezwan — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:52:12 +0000

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.

10.6 Endless Seconds in Football History

Gabriela García Calderón — Mon, 20 May 2013 10:00:58 +0000

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.

China: Online Social Management

Oiwan Lam — Mon, 20 May 2013 06:55:29 +0000

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.

Mozambique: Medical Professionals Announce Strike

Janet Gunter — Mon, 20 May 2013 06:48:53 +0000

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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Bermuda: House & Senate Accountability

Janine Mendes-Franco — Mon, 20 May 2013 01:38:24 +0000

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.”

“Who Wants to be Prestigious?”

Gabriela García Calderón — Sun, 19 May 2013 21:03:34 +0000

On the blog section [es] of Chilean newspaper El Mercurio [es], columnist Leila Guerriero 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.

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No Women In Pubs In Andhra After 10 PM

Rezwan — Sun, 19 May 2013 18:46:32 +0000

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.

Moscow Soccer Fans Clash with Police

Kevin Rothrock — Sun, 19 May 2013 16:49:30 +0000

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.

Indonesia: Petition to Save the Forest of Aceh

Mong Palatino — Sun, 19 May 2013 13:10:18 +0000

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.