Latest posts by Silvia Viñas from August, 2013
Choosing ‘Exile’ Over Break-up, US Citizens Follow ‘Banned’ Spouses Abroad
Families tell their stories online through social media, where they also raise awareness about their cases and pressure US legislators to include their families in the much anticipated immigration reform.
Strike in Colombia Gains Momentum
Colombia's national strike, which began with an agrarian strike on August 19, is “gaining momentum with shows of support from the citizenry”, as Steven Cohen writes in Colombia Reports: More than 10,000 people participated in “cacerolazos” — protests in which participants bang on kitchen pots and pans — held throughout...
Wikipedia in Guarani
This year, Wikipedia in Spanish reached one million articles and released a basic user guide in Guaraní. The idea is to revive the Guaraní-speaking community in this great platform. So far there are only 20 articles in that language. […] If you are interested in collaborating with this project, download...
Wave of Violence Against Guatemalan Journalists
Guatemalan journalists Carlos Alberto Orellana Chávez was gunned down on Monday, August 19, 2013; he is the fourth journalist killed in Guatemala this year. In an opinion piece [es] published in Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre, UN's special rapporteur for freedom of expression Frank La Rue denounced “the recent wave of...
VIDEO: Caracas’ Tower of David, the World's Tallest Slum
VocativVideo has produced a video about Venezuela's ‘Tower of David’, an unfinished 45-story building taken over by squatters in the 1990s: The tower was originally intended to be a symbol of Caracas’ bright financial future, complete with a rooftop helipad, but construction stopped because of a banking crisis and the...
Guatemalan Indigenous People Hold Peaceful Protests
As part of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, Guatemalan indigenous people held peaceful protests around the country to demand that their rights be respected. Cultural Survival reported on the peaceful protests which were held on August 9, 2013: The general sentiment of the protests as sited by...
Crowdmapping Mexico's Disappeared
# PorTodosLosDesaparecidos (For all the missing) is a direct initiative, without intermediaries, which seeks to create a direct contact between the victims, citizens, family and the media. The goal is to document the 27,000 people missing that the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) has registered. The Secretary of the Interior...
VIDEO: Shop at the ‘Barrio’ in Asunción, Paraguay
The campaign ‘Volvé al barrio’ (Return to the neighborhood) promotes small businesses in the Loma San Jerónimo neighborhood in Asunción, Paraguay's capital, with video ads where the neighborhood's residents tell viewers about their shops and small businesses. In the blog Hallucina [es], Global Voices contributor Gabriela Galilea shares three of...
Uruguay One Step Closer to Legalizing Marijuana
Lawmakers and citizens have been debating the government's plan to decriminalize the controlled sale and production of marijuana for more than a year.
TNW Announces Latin American Startup Awards Winners
In the lead up to this year’s The Next Web Conference Latin America, we’ve been running Startup Awards competitions in Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Brazil in search of the hottest startups and investors. […] The result has been absolutely amazing – in just under a week 18,448 people have cast a...
