Global Voices · Citizen media stories from around the world

Featured stories

Guatemala: Former Dictator Efraín Rios Montt Questioned for Genocide

Myanmar (Burma): Betwixt and Between

Taiwan: 2012 Election Sets Example for Mainland Chinese Democratization

Serbia: The Media War Against Angelina Jolie 26 January 2012
Greece: “I Signed the IMF Memorandum Without Having Read It” 26 January 2012
Argentina: Diplomatic Conflict With United Kingdom Over Falklands 26 January 2012
Russia: The Fake Political Twitter Account Phenomenon 25 January 2012
Poland: Government Will Sign ACTA Despite Massive Protest 25 January 2012

28 January 2012

Australia Day: Fury Follows Aboriginal Tent Embassy Protest

Written by Kevin Rennie · Oceania

Australia Day ceremonies are usually the dullest of events. But not when Australia’s political leaders are together just walking distance from a gathering at the contentious Aboriginal Tent Embassy. A spontaneous protest took place in a restaurant near the Embassy where Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard was awarding medals

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27 January 2012

Singapore: Corruption Scandal in Least Corrupt Nation

Written by Kirsten Han · East Asia

The heads of the Singapore Civil Defence Force and the Central Narcotics Bureau are being investigated by the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau sparking plenty of conversation about corruption in a country that has been consistently ranked as one of the least corrupt in the world.

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China: Not Worried About Twitter's Decision to Self-Censor

Written by John Kennedy · East Asia

Twitter announced this week that, with an eye on global profits, it has decided to begin censoring content prohibited in the various markets in which the company has users. In China, where Twitter has been blocked for more than two years but many users still frequent the site, one heavy Twitter user argues that the decision may not turn out to be a big deal.

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Zambia: When Wikipedia Entry “Kills” a President

Written by Gershom Ndhlovu · Sub-Saharan Africa

On the morning of 22 January 2012, Zambians woke up to a statement from State House rebuking news websites for spreading a rumour that President Michael Sata had been assassinated. However, it emerged later that the rumour stemmed from a Wikipedia entry about Michael Sata.

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Video Highlights: Music, Indigenous Initiatives, Indignation and Wonder

Written by Juliana Rincón Parra · Middle East & North Africa, East Asia

A selection of Global Voices' recent and interesting stories including video from Latin America, East Asia, Middle East and North Africa and Eastern and Central Europe, selected by Juliana Rincón Parra.

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Portugal: State Radio Silenced after Angola Opinion Piece

Written by Sara Moreira · Translated by Janet Gunter · Sub-Saharan Africa, Western Europe

A week after the broadcast of an opinion piece by the journalist Pedro Rosa Mendes on public radio, the end of the program was announced. The piece criticized the coverage of an event with several politicians and business men from Portugal and Angola. Bloggers immediately reacted to the "axing of freedom of expression".

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Updates

Indonesia

Google partners with Indonesian private and government sectors to bring 100,000 Indonesian small and medium businesses online by the end of 2012. The initiative is called Bisnis Lokal Go Online

• Mong Palatino

Singapore

Singapore Sojourn mentions the programs of the government and initiatives from the private sector to make Singapore a greener city.

• Mong Palatino

South Sudan

Urgent steps are needed to counter inter-communal violence in South Sudan: “Inter-communal violence in Jonglei and throughout South Sudan, while traditionally cyclical in nature, is not inevitable. The causes of this violence go beyond the retaliatory nature of cattle raiding and touch upon broader issues of accountability, reconciliation, political inclusion, state effectiveness, development, and the proliferation of arms among the civilian population.”

• Ndesanjo Macha

Sport

Shelby Grossman shares a story idea for journalists covering the Africa Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea: ” There is a fear among those who have been in the country for a while that after the tournament the government will conduct raids and crack down on illegal immigration. The harassment of foreign West Africans is already awful.”

• Ndesanjo Macha

Freedom of Speech

Standing with Ethiopia's jailed blogger: “It would be hard to find a better symbol of media repression in Africa than Eskinder Nega. The veteran Ethiopian journalist and dissident blogger has been detained at least seven times by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's government over the past two decades, and was put back in jail on September 14, 2011…”

• Ndesanjo Macha

Kenya

Young people Tweeting from mobile devices are driving the growth of Twitter in Africa, according to How Africa Tweets, new research launched by Portland: “In the first ever attempt to comprehensively map the use of Twitter in Africa, Portland and Tweetminster analysed over 11.5 million geo-located Tweets originating on the continent during the last three months of 2011.”

• Ndesanjo Macha

Bhutan

Penstar protests against the tendency of some Bhutanese newspapers to undermine Dzongkha language and suggests that the national language needs to be promoted everywhere.

• Rezwan

China: Tibet Burns, But Where Are the Chinese Public Intellectuals?

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