Global Voices · Citizen media stories from 2010 August 01

1 August 2010

Daily archive · 4 posts

Stories from 1 August 2010

USA: Debating Essence Magazine Hire of Ellianna Placas, First White Director

On Jul 19, Essence, America’s premiere black women’s magazine and a media institution, announced that it has named Ellianna Placas as its new Fashion Director. Placas is a renown fashion editor, she is also the first white woman to be hired at this position. Bloggers debate the social and cultural implications of the hire.

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China: Sex workers demand legalization, organizer detained

Written by John Kennedy · East Asia

If prostitution doesn't violate contemporary cultural norms, sex activists argue, then why doesn't the law reflect as much? Just a few days after a group in central China took to the street to gather support in a fight for social status for sex workers, the organizer has been detained by police.

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Japan: Is it wrong to climb Mount Fuji empty-handed?

Written by Tomomi Sasaki · East Asia

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it matter if it made a sound or not when the tree was doing its own thing? A Japanese blogger ponders mountains, morals, and messages in a Japanese post titled "Is it wrong to climb Mount Fuji empty-handed?"

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Russia: Towns and Villages on Fire

Written by Veronica Khokhlova · Eastern & Central Europe

Hundreds of forest and peat fires are raging across central Russia. The organization of the firefighting effort has been inadequate in many cases, and local residents often choose to self-mobilize and defend nearby towns and villages with whatever means they happen to have at their disposal.

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Updates from 1 August 2010

India

Anirban at It's A Miracle stereotypes the Indian middle class in 15 points.

• Rezwan

Taiwan (ROC)

The Taiwan pink dolphin known as TW-36 was entangled in a rope in September 2008. Save the Taiwan Humpback Dolphins reports the dolphin has recently been sighted again and is free of the entangling rope.

• David Reid

Russia

LJ user zyalt published the pictures [RUS] from the opposition rally in Moscow that happened on July 31.

• Vadim Isakov

Russia

Digital Sky Technologies, an influential Russian Internet company that recently bought ICQ from AOL, plans to start selling 25 percent of its shares to the public in 2011. This can create a precedent for other Russian Internet firms that remain mostly private, The Moscow Times reports [ENG].

• Vadim Isakov

Thailand

Tony Hedges comments on Thai political crisis. He compares Thailand to an “Isaan house, on stilts, with a huge hole in the floor. Everyone knows there is a hole in the floor, but they generally walk around it giving it a wide berth.”

• Mong Palatino

Indonesia

Unspun links to an article published at futuregov where a commissioner of the Indonesian Telecommunications Regulatory Authority was quoted as saying that social networks are Indonesia's fifth estate.

• Mong Palatino

Indonesia

Indonesia's highest state sponsored Muslim clerical organisation, the Majelis Ulama Indonesia, has issued a fatwa (ruling) declaring gossip shows and sex change operations as haram or forbidden. The government is not obliged to apply the fatwa into law.

• Mong Palatino

Indonesia

Multibrand wants absentee legislators in Indonesia to be investigated after the publication of a report about the declining attendance in the House of Representatives.

• Mong Palatino

Nigeria

Ethan blogs about a workshop on ICT and the Nigerian film industry: “(I asked a set of Ghanaian friends about online piracy and Ghallywood films – were they using BitTorrent to download films? They laughed at me – while the level of net connectivity in Ghana is generally higher than in Nigeria, the cost of downloading a video from BitTorrent, vastly exceeds what it would cost to walk onto the street and buy a film from a local vendor.”

• Ndesanjo Macha