Global Voices

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The world is talking, are you listening?

At BiggggIdea.com (uk; “Velyka Ideya” – “a platform where people present their projects, and the community funds them”), Oleksandr Telyuk draws attention [uk] to Wheelmap.org, a crowdmapping project that allows users to evaluate and mark wheelchair accessibility of various locations worldwide. Telyuk notes that 96 percent of public places in Ukraine's capital Kyiv still lack adequate wheelchair access, and, as for the Ukrainian segment of Wheelmap.org,

[...] Most objects on the Ukrainian map are now colored gray, which means that their wheelchair accessibility hasn't been determined by anyone yet. [...]

Ousmane Gueye on the site Mondoblog writes [fr] about the slow deployment of African troops in northern Mali :

If we were to judge the impact of the intervention in Mali by the jubilant euphoria of liberated populations, then it should be obvious that by deploying so slowly, African countries failed Mali once again ….. All the posturing by African heads of state and yet they could not achieve a single action of their own to slow down the Islamists in Mali.

MyWeku compiles a list of 10 best African food blogs for 2013: “There are seemingly a million food blogs out there, but only a handful showcase African food. Even so it has still been a struggle to pick 10 of our favourites for this year (2013).”

Glorifying Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Bolshevik Revolution, was a popular theme in Soviet literature. Kimiyoi Saodat (The Chemistry of Happiness) blog traces [tj] the Lenin-praising tradition in Tajik poetry, from the prominent poets of the Soviet period to some contemporaries. More than two decades after independence, debates persist about the role of Lenin in the history of Tajikistan.

The Hungarian Student Network and the Hungarian High School Network posted a declaration [en] “about the rule of law” in Hungary – and are planning yet another protest rally [hu] in Budapest on Monday, Feb. 11:

Today’s proposal for a constitutional amendment has made it obvious – even for those who so far doubted it – that the government is openly dismantling the system of checks and balances. According to Article 12 of the proposal, the Constitutional Court will not be allowed to scrutinize the content of any further amendments, which in effect means that the government and its two-thirds parliamentary majority will be able to pass any amendments they want. [...]