Global Voices Online

Stories

Chileans Students Still Stand for their Rights

It is the first time in more than 15 years that public school students have coordinated to make the government hear their petitions. So far they have mobilized more than 150,000 students. How did they make it happen? Using technology. They all have blogs, use messenger, emails, and fotoblogs. These tools allowed them to act fast and communicate nationally. A complete list of all the schools is here.
This week they made peaceful manifestations in the main streets of the capital that were infiltrated by hoodlums. Policemen were really tough and had to make public excuses for the way they treated students. “Grafica Rebelde” posted photos and videos of the incident.

President Michelle Bachelet, in national TV last night, responded to the petitions. She only offered free matriculation and public transportation for those in need and the student transportation pass now can be used 24 hrs and on weekends. This declaration, open ed a new problem, because the association of transportation does not agree with the solution. 520 public schools will improve their infrastructure and also 1,200 schools will be benefited by new furniture. Bachelet also announced the creation of new educational counselling, that will be in charge of student matters and will make modifications to the substantive law.Zaiditawaxona (ES) posts extracts of the speech and says that she doesn’t agree will the entire proposal.
Another viewpoint comes from Petruska (ES) who writes “I think that education is not that bad, because have teach something really profit for us, to made people associate for a common benefit “

Students are still deciding about these resolutions. If they don’t agree on Bachelet's proposal, next Monday there will be a national strike again. One of the public schools wrote in their blog (ES) that “tell all the president and delegates of the courses that we will have a meeting with a resolute character on Monday 5”.

To have a deep feeling of the animus and sensations of the students in these weeks, “In Plain Words” made a report each day and also got into the schools during the strike to post photos about the life of students while the occupation happened.

We will have to wait until Monday to know what will happen.

1 comment · read »

Trafalgar Falls, Dominica

Georgia Popplewell · 19:24 · Americas

“The Trafalgar Falls are one of Dominica's main tourist attractions, especially for cruise ship visitors, who were there in abundance the day we went. Still we managed to find a secluded hot pool and then an even more secluded cold pool to soak in for a little while.”

writes Barbadian blogger Titilayo in a post about her recent visit to Dominica entitled “i prayed the days would last, they went so fast.” Among the other attractions featured in Titlayo's Dominica photo album are Spanny's Falls, the Emerald Pool, the Boiling Lake and a lovely old stone church. Dominica is often referred to as “the Nature Isle of the Caribbean”.

1 comment · read »

Russia: Limonov and Copyright

Veronica Khokhlova · 18:28 · Eastern & Central Europe

Russia is notorious for its disregard for copyright laws. According to anti-piracy organizations, it is the second-biggest source of pirated software, music and film in the world. China is the first.

The discussion translated below (RUS) takes on the issue of piracy in a somewhat ironic vein: Sergei Maximishin (LJ user remetalk), an award-winning Russian photographer whose brilliant work appears regularly in many leading publications, discovered that one of his best-known photos - an ambiguous portrait of the Russian president Vladimir Putin - was used without permission on the cover of a book by one of the most controversial Russian politicians, Eduard Limonov, founder of the National-Bolshevik Party. The book's title is “We Don't Need a President Like This: Limonov vs Putin.”

The irony is that trying to sue Limonov or his publishers would, in a way, be like casting the first stone: Maximishin admits to having used unlicensed software himself - simply because he, like the multitudes of other Russians, couldn't afford the licensed product.

remetalk:

About theft

$limonov\'s book cover$

The cover of Limonov's book. I think this picture of mine has already become a folk picture [author unknown; in public domain].

[…]

(more…)

2 comments · read »

China: Old festival, new name

John Kennedy · 17:19 · East Asia

Known in the West mainly for its colorful dragon boat races, yesterday's Duan Wu (端午) Festival has its origins with Qu Yuan (屈原), a renowned and respected corruption-fighting poet whose political passion, many claim, was equalled only by his homosexuality. As the story goes, his unrequited love for the king, combined with frustration over entrenched graft led Qu to throw himself into the Miluo river.

The locals then jumped into their boats and raced to the spot, throwing leave-wrapped bundles of steamed rice and meat into the river to stop the fish from feasting on his corpse. Today, while dragonboat races take place on the fifth day of the fifth month of every lunar year all over the world, in China the festival—vaguely bearing both anti-corruption and queer identity [zh] implications aside—bears little connection to its traditional roots.

Thus says Sina blogger Zhang Chi (张弛), who argues the festival, like several of its counterparts, should be renamed to reflect its current condition: a chance to eat zongzi, or sticky rice dumplings.

Zongzi: Sticky Rice Dumpling

(more…)

3 comments · read »

Mongolian Mining and the Blogs

Ben Paarmann · 13:07 · Central Asia & Caucasus

Mine shaft construction at Oyu Tolgoi, Mongolia, image by Ivanhoe Mines

The May 12, passing of Mongolia's windfall profit tax law on copper and gold rocked Mongolia's mining world. The law calls for a 68% tax on gold when the international price is above USD$500/oz and on copper on prices above $2,600 per ton. While Mongolia has always said that they are very supportive of foreign investment, companies viewed this as a real threat to a previously investment friendly atmosphere.

The law was passed on a Friday night and went relatively unseen in Mongolian media, however by Saturday afternoon reports in English were on mongolia.neweurasia.net and mongolia-web.com. For investors in the United States and Canada this was the first time they had heard about the new law and many companies stocks fell 20-30%. The lack of information sources in English on Mongolia have brought blogs to the forefront, especially on mining and the windfall profit tax. (more…)

10 comments · read »

Arabisc: Arabic Bloggers Ken

Haitham Sabbah · 12:29 · Middle East & North Africa

This week in the Arabic Language blogsphere:

Let’s start with the hard stuff. Tara from Iraq, has some rare seen images:

Tara then writes:

أحاول ،كل يوم ، ان اطرد صور الناس الذين اراهم في عملي عندما ارجع الى البيت ، و لكن تأتي أيام تبقى فيها بعض الصور في مخي طوال الوقت ، مثل صورة هذا الطفل ذو الست سنوات مع هذه الاطلاقة في رأسه التي اصيب بها في مدينة بعقوبة قبل عدة ساعات من تصويره في مستشفانا حيث وصل فاقدا للوعي :
الشيء الابيض المحاط بالاسود هو الاطلاقة و الخط الابيض الى يمينها هو نزيف في الدماغ.
البعض علّق انها كانت بطيئة لذلك فقدت عزمها و وقفت هناك في وسط دماغه .أنا لا أفهم في الامور العسكرية و كل ما فكرت به عندما حمله ابوه وخرج من غرفة الفحص ان حياتهم الآن ستتغير الى الابد.

I try every day when I return home to expel and retard what are becoming increasingly apparent pictures of people whom I see at work here. But some days, these pictures stick to my mind all the time, such as the images of this child who is six years old, with the a bullet in his head, injured in the city of Baquba several hours before he reached our hospital where he arrived unconscious:

The white thing surrounded by black color is the bullet and the white line to the right of it is the bleeding in his brain. Some commented that the bullet was slow and stood there in the middle of his head. I do not understand in military terms and the only thought in my mind when the father left the room carrying his kid is that their lives will change forever.

(more…)

1 comment · read »