Global Voices

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The world is talking, are you listening?

French

Gabon Election 2009 in English and French on Twitter. The page is maintained by a citizen journalist from Gabon: Young Gabonese, Citi. Journalist, DigitActivist,waiting 4 free elections, peace and prosperity in his homeland. Hoping that you'll help us to fight for this!!!

French

Cellule Francafrique [Fr] reports on a new lawsuit filed against the presidents of Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and the Republic of the Congo in a court in Paris last week.  The suit, brought by Transparency International and a Gabonese taxpayer, accuses the three heads of state of “concealing misappropriated public funds”.

English

Lou Gold, a North-American blogger and nature-person turned “brasileiro', blogs about [En] Grandma Aggie and the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, re-telling some of the adventures of these courageous indigenous ladies and their recent efforts to get the Pope to rescind the Papal Bulls that created the “right” to take native lands.

French

Blogger Hiromitsu Takagi [高木浩光] takes up the story [ja] of Google vice president Kent Walker's Q&A at a press conference in Tokyo on Sept. 29th, highlighting statements [ja] by Google Japan director Kōichirō Tsujino [辻野晃一郎] claiming that people who would like images from the company's Street View service to be taken down can contact their regional administrative offices or consumer centers. Takagi has his doubts and calls Google directly, then calls his local consumer center, and in the end confirms that no provisions are in place for takedown requests. Listen to his phone conversation with Google (in Japanese). (Thanks to Gen Kanai for the link.)

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English

Jeremy Weate at Naijablog posted an article on Gabonese President Omar Bongo's taste for luxury.

French

Association des gabonais d'Amiens dispels a mermaid hoax [Fr]. Photographs of a mermaid supposedly discovered dead on a beach in Libreville were actually downloaded from an eBay auction for a mermaid sighting in St. Petersburg, Florida. The St. Petersburg photographs sold for US$1500 to a French natural history museum.

Updates

Association des gabonais d'Amiens posts a video of the “Michael Jackson of Gabon.” [Fr]

Updates

Association des gabonais d'Amiens writes about a monument in Airaines, a small French village of 2,000 people, dedicated to Charles Ntchorere, a Gabonese captain in the French army [Fr] who was taken prisoner and executed by German forces in 1940.

Updates

Reflecting on the French presidential elections [Fr], Don Ray of Le Blog de Don Ray comes away with three impressions: first, the election, with its record turnout, was proof of France's robust democracy; second, socialism in France is finished; and last, Sarkozy's presidency will do little to change France's policy toward Africa. After all, according to Omar Bongo, Sarkozy is the “most gabonais of all French.” Mr. Bongo should know; in addition to being president of Gabon, he is the longest serving head of state on the continent.

Updates

African journalists working in France are calling on the two remaining French presidential candidates, Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal, to begin a new chapter in Franco-African relations (Fr), according to the blog of the Alliance for Democratic Progress. “We have to reconsider everything, make a fresh start, a sort of “big bang,” so that France stops treating us like children. Africa must be a partner.” (Fr)