Global Voices · Citizen media stories from 2011 March 12

12 March 2011

Daily archive · 7 posts

Stories from 12 March 2011

El Salvador: Thoughts on International Women's Day

Written by Omar Nieto · Translated by Marco Veliz · Latin America

2011 finds El Salvador with the highest rate of femicides in the word, according to Spanish newspaper El Pais. Some Salvadorean bloggers have made their own reflections on the day and what it means for women in El Salvador.

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Azerbaijan: More Protests, More Arrests…

Written by Onnik Krikorian · Central Asia & Caucasus

Following yesterday's protest by youth activists in Azerbaijan, opposition supporters today staged their own. Also inspired by pro-democracy protests in Egypt and Tunisia, the demonstration might not have been as large as those, but it was certainly intense.

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Egypt: Leaked Documents Reveal Dirty Games of Former Regime

Written by Afef Abrougui · Middle East & North Africa

When a number of Egyptian protestors attacked the headquarters of the hated State Security in different Egyptian cities, their aim was not to show their contempt for the unpopular institution, a symbol of Mubarak’s regime, but it was rather to rewrite history.

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Japan: Onagawa, the Hometown I Once Knew

Written by Tomomi Sasaki · East Asia

A personal account of evacuation in Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture: Twitter user @kombu_s evacuated to Sendai City and posted tweets and images from her journey, saying "I am an ordinary person that went to pick up her family."

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Japan: Fear in Fukushima

Written by Solana Larsen · East Asia

The day after a 8.9-magnitude earthquake struck Japan, an explosion at Fukushima Daiichi power plant, 150 miles north of Tokyo, is causing both fear and confusion on Twitter about what may happen next.

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Portugal: A Protest Generation, Foolish and Scraping By

Written by Ana Vasquez · Translated by Sara Moreira · Western Europe

Hostilities have commenced: today the “Scraping-by Generation” goes to the streets in Portugal and beyond, protesting that 23% of young people are unemployed and hundreds of thousands are underemployed or in precarious work situations. With an anthem and some anti-conformism, is this Generation foolish?

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Taiwan: Reflection on Japan Earthquake

Written by Portnoy Zheng · East Asia

When the 5th strongest earthquake ever recorded hit Japan yesterday, Taiwanese were also shocked. Taiwan and Japan share a lot of geological similarity and both countries are very vulnerable to natural disasters such as earthquake and typhoon.

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Updates from 12 March 2011

Sri Lanka

Indi.ca writes about two thrilling matches in the ongoing cricket world cup, which is being hosted in three South Asian countries.

• Rezwan

Japan

@Traysizzzle writes: “I hope #Japan starts distributing #iodine asap to anyone close to the radiation…it's not #Chernobyl but its prognosis is not good…”

• Veronica Khokhlova

Pakistan

Beena Sarwar informs that Citizens for Democracy arranged a mass letter-writing campaign in Karachi today. The letters urge the Pakistan authorities to take appropriate actions to reverse the erosion of civil and human rights and to uphold the rule of law without fear or favor.

• Rezwan

Japan

@DJLoli shares a health tip that was popular in Ukraine in 1986: “If u r in the area affected by Japan radiation: drink red Wine to get it out. It what helped us in Ukraine during #Chernobyl. […]” (Here's an article on a 2008 study that showed that “resveratrol, the natural antioxidant commonly found in red wine […], may offer protection against radiation exposure […].”)

• Veronica Khokhlova

Japan

@BrianDunning, author of a science podcast Skeptoid, explains: “Fukushima nuclear plant does NOT have a combustible graphite core like Chernobyl. A total meltdown should flow into underground containment.” (This explanation has been retweeted by over 100 people already.)

• Veronica Khokhlova

Japan

The official Japanese Twitter blog has published a list of earthquake related hastags, along with special search queries that “filter out noise and provide the clearest results”.

• Tomomi Sasaki

Japan

Miu tells her experience [en] during the 8.9 magnitude earthquake that struck north-eastern Japan yesterday. The blogger says she was in a department store in Tokyo and thought that “things didn't seem terribly abnormal”.

• Scilla Alecci

Belarus

Pyotr Kuznetsov posts a petition (RUS, ENG) to the International Ice Hockey Federation, drafted by Lithuania-based Belarusian opposition activists, in which they are proposing “to change the location of the [2014 ice hockey championship] from Belarus to another country” - because “[t]he atmosphere in Belarus and the actions of Mr. Lukashenka are incompatible with the principles of sport and the mission of IIHF.”

• Veronica Khokhlova