Global Voices · Citizen media stories from 2011 July 25

25 July 2011

Daily archive · 4 posts

Stories from 25 July 2011

Belarus: East and West and Nothing in Between?

Written by Vilhelm Konnander · Eastern & Central Europe, Western Europe

"East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet." This chronically misused Kipling phrase seems to catch the realities for an increasing number of Belarusians, who, waking to a wild and hostile world, are asking: "Who cares about Belarus?"

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Tunisia: Time to Register for Elections

Written by Lina Ben Mhenni · Middle East & North Africa

Registration for electoral lists in Tunisia started on July 11 and will be closed on August 2, but statistics have shown that Tunisians are reluctant to register on the lists. A group of Tunisian bloggers have launched an online campaign to urge people to register for the October elections.

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Argentina: What Irritates Argentinians?

Written by Laura Schneider · Translated by Elizabeth · Latin America

Argentinians and Twitter: a means to express what irritates them. On July 22, the hashtag #irritante (#irritating) became a local trending topic with protests and irritations about politics, traffic, neighbors and even family and social networks.

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Saudi Arabia: New Anti-Terror Law Crushes Protests

Written by Mona Kareem · Middle East & North Africa

Amnesty International's leaked draft of the new Saudi anti-terror law has prompted a strong reaction to the proposed legislation. Twitter users are using the hashtag #SaudiTerrorLaw to voice their opinions.

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Updates from 25 July 2011

Sri Lanka

London, Lanka And Drums has posted a roundup of recent posts from Sri Lankan blogs discussing politics.

• Rezwan

Bangladesh

In Bangladesh 7 out of 8 people remain out of banking service but the interesting thing is that half of those people have access to mobile phones. BRAC has a solution for financial inclusion of these people, especially the poor and the marginalized, via mobile phones.

• Rezwan

Uruguay

Uruguay beat Paraguay 3-0 in the Copa América final yesterday, Sunday July 24. The Latinamericanist writes about Uruguay's victory and Mauricio Milano at Montevideo Blogger [es] shares some thoughts and pictures of the celebrations.

• Silvia Viñas

Bolivia

Luis Ramos in Citizen of La Paz [es] asks, “what do we need to change in La Paz?”. He answers his own question with a list of ten ideas, including improving transportation, planting more trees, building a convention center, more malls, a theme park, among other things.

• Silvia Viñas

Mexico

Bloggings by boz points out that the criminal organization the ‘Knights Templar' is present in Mexico and that “the killer in Norway's shocking massacre last week also considered himself a member of the Knights Templar”. He adds: “I doubt anyone thinks these two groups are linked. […] Yet, it raises the question of what makes violent ideologues and criminals search the past for inspiration? And what makes two groups so far apart find that inspiration in the Knights Templar?”

• Silvia Viñas

Guyana

The Royal Commonwealth Society is creating the world's largest online time capsule in honour of HM Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee in 2012 and wants regional/Commonwealth bloggers to share their stories. Get involved, here.

• Janine Mendes-Franco

Brazil

The controversial long feature “A Serbian Film” was banned [pt] from the RioFan film festival by its main sponsor, the Brazilian national bank Caixa Econômica Federal, as announced [pt] on the website of the organization. Brazilian citizens organized a protest against censorship. A video [pt] gathers several analyses of the case by cinephiles.

• Sara Moreira

Botswana

Read about Kelly's experiences of ocean in the desert in Botswana: “The Makgadikadi Pans are the largest salt pans in the world, located in the Kalahari Desert near the centre of Botswana. For Seretse Khama Day, I ventured out to the Pans for my first time and headed to Kubu (Hippo) Island which had a reputation for being a magical place.”

• Ndesanjo Macha