Global Voices

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The world is talking, are you listening?

Safia Dickersbach (@ArtsSafia) challenges a new programme dedicated to foster “German-African cultural relations”:

3. The Kulturstiftung claims to support the new African initiatives in the area of contemporary and innovative art. But on the other hand:

a. Africans are not allowed to apply for the funds directly.

b. The African partners are only allowed to apply together with an institutional partner in Germany. The funding guidelines reveal the reason to this: “The German partner, as the project coordinator, has to assume responsibility for ensuring that all funds are expended as contractually agreed upon with the Federal Cultural Foundation.” In other, simpler, words: The Africans are not trustworthy.

Berlin held its second SenseCamp on February 8 and 9, 2013, a barcamp dedicated to social entrepreneurship. The program included workshops, meetings and conferences, to raise the impact of social entrepreneurial start-ups. Creative types, entrepreneurs and those who were interested, were invited to register in order to participate in this event:

Video created by Stanislas Buagev to present SenseCamp 2013 in Berlin – Sous license CC-BY-2.0

The photo that won the first place in Journalism in Arab European photographers ninth festival 10-10-2012. Source: Yazan Homsi Facebook page

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Journelle tweeted about a hashtag that has gripped the German twittersphere:

What I like about #aufschrei [outcry] is that it’s bringing much-deserved attention to these disgusting incidents of casual sexism that might otherwise be played down.

Using the hashtag #aufschrei [de], female Twitter users have been reporting the sexual harassment and abuse they have experienced at work or at school, or when simply going about their day-to-day lives. Ina Marinescu has collected some of these Tweets on her blog [de].

Rick Falkvinge, the founder of Pirate Party, reinterprets the wars of religion that devastated Western Europe in the XVI and XVII centuries in terms of the current struggle to control information through overbearing legislation related to copyright and freedom of expression:

The religious wars were never about religion as such. They were about who held the power of interpretation, about who controlled the knowledge and culture available to the masses. It was a war of gatekeepers of information.

The news about anti-Chinese sentiment in Australia, Germany and the Netherlands as a result of the shortage of infant forumla milk is widely discussed in Hong Kong. Dictionary of Politically Incorrect Hong Kong Cantonese has collected the reports and the online discussion on this anti-Chinese sentiment.