Global Voices · Citizen media stories from 2010 November 17

17 November 2010

Daily archive · 9 posts

Stories from 17 November 2010

Tunisia: Launch a Blog Campaign Kicks Off

Written by Lina Ben Mhenni · Middle East & North Africa

After a seven-month lull in blogging activities, thanks to a crackdown by authorities which resulted in the blockage of more than 100 blogs, Tunisian bloggers are joining forces to encourage even more people to start sharing their thoughts and experiences online. Launch a Blog campaign has just been launched with the aim of attracting new bloggers to fight back censorship.

· 2

· read »

Iran: Online Rage against Lebanese Hezbollah Leader

Written by Fred Petrossian · Middle East & North Africa

Several Iranian bloggers have reacted to an online video where Lebanese Hezbollah Leader, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, makes the controversial claims that Iran does not have any Persian civilisation and that the Islamic Republic's founder was of Arab ancestry.

· 4

· read »

Russia: Controversy as Cyrillic Domains Hit the Open Market

Written by Alexey Sidorenko · RuNet Echo

This post is part of our special coverage Languages and the Internet. On November 11, 2010, registration for Internet domains in Cyrillic script, the writing system used by Russian and...

· 1

· read »

The Nicaragua-Costa Rica Conflict, Revisited: Part I

Written by Rodrigo Penalba · Translated by Marco Veliz · Latin America

In a prior post, Global Voices began to cover a border dispute between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The situation has become more complex. In this first part we review two moments of this crisis as seen from Nicaraguan and Costa Rican blogs: "Google's error", and the role of Edén Pastora, the presidential delegate for the dredging of the Rio San Juan, as a main character in the conflict.

· 4

· read »

USA: Hunger Strike of Border Women at White House Ends

Written by Gina Cardenas · North America, Latin America

Eleven women from the organization La Mujer Obrera (Working Women) who advocate for community-led economic development along the United States-Mexico border, ended a ten-day hunger strike in front of the White House in Washington, D.C today.

· read »

Kazakhstan: Livejournal Unblocked After 2 Years of Filtering

Written by Adil Nurmakov · Central Asia & Caucasus

Livejournal, the most popular blogging platform in the Russian-language segment of the world wide web, was blocked by the national operator - and subsequently by other Internet service providers in...

· 4

· read »

Brazil: new wave of discussion of the role of “Militant Atheists”

Written by Raphael Tsavkko Garcia · Latin America

On October 10, the famous liberation theologian Frei Betto wrote an article in a major Brazilian newspaper, Folha de São Paulo - reproduced by the Blog do Miro [Miro's Blog,...

· read »

China: iPadgate

Written by Oiwan Lam · East Asia, North America

Since October Chinese Customs have started charging a 20% tax for carrying iPhones and iPads across the border even if the products were out of the box and in use. This has caught people by surprise because in recent years shopping tours are one of the most important parts of the cross-border economy between Hong Kong and China.

· read »

Ecuador: Preparing for the 2010 Census

Written by Milton Ramirez · Latin America

Ecuadorians are getting ready to participate in the 2010 Census that will take place on November 28.

· read »

Updates from 17 November 2010

Russia

On the one-year anniversary of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky's death, Robert Amsterdam writes: “No one has ever been held accountable for Magnitsky's death: no charges, no arrests, no trials, and no justice, despite the mountains of evidence and even the names of the ‘untouchables' made public. Instead, with a familiar Russian twist, the killers were rewarded with promotions and decorations, while the victim has been blamed for the crime.”

• Veronica Khokhlova

Russia

More on journalist Oleg Kashin's case from the Anglophone Russia blogosphere: on OpenDemocracy.net, Mumin Shakirov translates and analyzes a selection of Kashin's blog posts; Sean's Russia Blog writes that Kashin “has become yet another assault weapon in a much larger political battle.”

• Veronica Khokhlova

Russia

Global Chaos writes about the potential impact that the Soviet and Russian cartoons in public diplomacy: “They can even help overcome long-held preconceptions and stereotypes about the other, thus creating the space for further openness to meaningful communication and information processing.”

• Veronica Khokhlova

Chile

The Latin Americanist writes about recent protests targeting the government and the mining industry: “Chile’s mining industry has come under increased scrutiny since the mine collapse that left the 33 miners trapped underground for about seventy days. Unfortunately the reform promised by President Sebastian Pinera has been slow to materialize.”

• Silvia Viñas

Dominican Republic

Blogger María Isabel Soldevila [es] writes:”In a country in which gender violence is still considered a ‘passion' crime, where the body and sexuality are being regulated without considering that girls suffer the worst abuses and neglect, the Millennium Objectives will never be reached. We have to wake up. It's urgent”.

• Firuzeh Shokooh Valle

Mexico

Gancho writes: “Amnesty [International] says that 20,000 immigrants per year are kidnapped in Mexico. With all the other security problems in Mexico, it's going to be hard to make threats to poor Hondurans and Guatemalans a major focus without periodic massacres, but Mexico can do a lot to alleviate this by breaking up organized crime rings generally.”

• Silvia Viñas

Chile

Sigrid Huenchunir [es] wrote a post for El Quinto Poder [es] on how Twitter has become one of the main (and fastest) ways for her to stay informed on what is happening in Chile while she is away studying. She says that through Twitter she learns about things the Chilean media ignores or scarcely covers, like the recent Mapuche hunger strike.

• Silvia Viñas

Mexico

Club Fonograma: We are Sudamerican Pop! is a music blog, written in English, that reviews Latin American music. Blog posts include audio or video of the band or singer being reviewed. They are on Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, and My Space.