30 March 2010

Stories from 30 March 2010

Chile: The Process of Earthquake Reconstruction

  30 March 2010

Exactly a month after the devastating earthquake in Chile, President Sebastián Piñera announced a reconstruction plan for the country’s infrastructure and housing, prompting Chileans to provide opinions about how this process should be implemented and monitored.

Trinidad & Tobago: Shouter Baptist Liberation Day

  30 March 2010

“It seems hard to believe or to fully understand the idea that practicing a faith could be considered illegal here in T&T where we pride ourselves on religious tolerance and diversity, however for many decades that was exactly what the Shouter Baptist community endured”: TriniGourmet.com has some ideas for local...

Brazil: “Sao Paulo, shithole of world”

  30 March 2010

In a post called “Sao Paulo, shithole of world”, Adriano Cintra from the band CSS, publishes a set of amazing pictures showing what happens when it rains in the biggest Latin American city, portraying the chaos the population has lived with since the beginning of the year.

China and Hong Kong: Post 80's Generation

  30 March 2010

K.E. David from ChinaGeek translated an article written by Yang Hengjun on his encounter with post 80's generation in a talk on democracy. The discussion makes him realize the connection between democracy and young people's future.

China: Google.cn search blocked

  30 March 2010

Several twitterers, including @williamlong @geekinmedia @aHexie @terryxxy and @mranti, confirmed the blocking of google.cn's search in major cities, such as Beijing and Shenzhen in China. According to @mranti: Google search is blocked in Beijing. Any search will trigger reset.

Sweden: Parliament Recognizes the Assyrian Genocide

The Swedish Parliament has recognized as genocide the massacres that took place within the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1920 against the Armenian, Assyrian and Pontic Greek population - an episode that is also referred to as "Seyfo" by the Assyrian Diaspora. Bloggers react to this development in this post.

China: Kidney Stone Babies’ father on trial

  30 March 2010

Today, Zhao Lianhai, the founder of “kidney stone babies” whose 4-year old son was poisoned by Sanlu melamine tainted milk in 2008 was put on trial today under the criminal charge of “provoking an incident”. The trial ended at 2:30pm, Zhao pleaded not guilty but the verdict has yet to...

Arab World: Earth Hour Marked Across the Region

Earth Hour is an annual event celebrated on the last Saturday in March. Awareness of Earth Hour has been spreading throughout the world since its inception in Australia in 2007. In this post, Katharine Ganly takes a look at some of the initiatives celebrating Earth Hour in the Arab World.

India: Tribals Using Cell Phones To Publish News

  30 March 2010

Indian Tribals Blog reports that “dozens of citizen journalists in India’s chronically neglected tribal communities are producing and sharing audio news reports for the first time through an innovative cell phone system.”

Bangladesh: Aktel Becomes Robi

  30 March 2010

Aktel, one of the leading cell phone service providers in Bangladesh, has renamed its brand as Robi in an attempt to ‘localise’ its branding. Bangladesh Corporate Blog analyzes consumer reactions through netizens’ eyes.

India: Water Crisis Is Man Made

  30 March 2010

Muriel Kakani writes that India’s recent water crisis is “predominantly a man-made problem”. The blogger opines that ‘water harvesting from rainfalls’ can be a solution.

Sri Lanka: Unbounded Crowd-sourcing Of Human Rights Violations

  30 March 2010

Sanjana Hattotuwa at ICT For Peacebuilding (ICT4Peace) discusses about the unbounded nature of a new crowd-sourcing initiative in Sri Lanka called Citizens Net. This mapping project records human rights violence on issues regarding “gender-based violence, the rights of children, the elderly and the disabled”.

Peru: Alarmist Report on Possible Earthquake in Lima

  30 March 2010

A recent report by the Peruvian Civil Defense finds that if an earthquake struck the capital city of Lima that 51,000 people would die. Blogger Juan Sheput of Mate Pastor [es] criticizes the report calling it “alarmist” and “incomplete” for not thoroughly explaining its methodology and for not taking into...