· January, 2010

Stories about LANGUAGES from January, 2010

Haiti: Wired Money May Help Rebuild Before Aid

  30 January 2010

With phone lines being restored in Haiti, money sent from families abroad “by wire” is again arriving, and helping reconstruction even where international aid has not arrived. Remittances from family members living abroad represented at least thirty percent of Haiti's Gross National Product before the January 12 earthquake.

Sri Lanka: ‘Lanka E news’ Banned

  30 January 2010

Journalists For Democracy In Sri Lanka blog informs that “the office of the ‘Lanka e news’, a prominent news website operating from Sri Lanka, has been sealed off by the authorities. [..] Two days before the elections, another regular contributor to the website, Prageeth Eknalogoda, went missing.”

Tunisia: Language Choices

  30 January 2010

In this post entitled Arabic, French or English: for “whom” the bell tolls? the Third Ijtihad talks about the use of languages in speaking with others.

Pakistan: Depleting Water Resources

  30 January 2010

Owais Mughal at All Things Pakistan discusses about the depleting water resources of Pakistan and urges the decision makers to “invest in Pakistan’s Water Resources for the stability of the country and the region.”

Ukraine: “Bring Your Skates”

  30 January 2010

Greetings from Kyiv posts an update on the situation on Kyiv's sidewalks: “This year, Kyiv City Services decided not to clean up the snow so the snow on the sidewalks turns into a very slippery ice rink. The fact that cars use the sidewalks as parking lots adds to the...

Russia: Consumerism

  30 January 2010

St Petersblurb sees “the whole EU exactly through the eyes of a Russian” ex-girlfriend: “It’s just a retail chain with branches in different languages.”

Russia: CJR Piece on the Media

  29 January 2010

Robert Amsterdam recommends Adam Federman's article on the Russian media, published in Columbia Journalism Review: “[…] Federman focuses on the remaining mechanisms and political dynamics for freedom of press and the conditions in which genuinely good investigative journalism can still occur in today's harshly repressive media environment in Russia.”

Global Voices in Haiti: Litmus Test

  29 January 2010

Georgia Popplewell, on the ground in post-earthquake Haiti, looks into reports of "tear gas" being used at a food distribution point, and visits the Carrefour area of Port-au-Prince. The second in a series of special reports.

Russia: Potential iPad Pricing and Sales

RuNet Echo  29 January 2010

Svetlana Gladkova of Profy writes that “representatives of one of the local retailers that is now negotiating iPad sales in Russia expect to be able to sell iPad at the price that will be twice as high as it is in the US”: “Now can anyone explain me why Apple...

Global Voices in Haiti: Arriving in Port-au-Prince

  29 January 2010

Georgia Popplewell, a member of the two-person Global Voices team on the ground in post-earthquake Haiti, files her first report from Port-au-Prince. "Two of Pétionville's squares have been transformed into teeming tent cities. The area just east of the Champs de Mars is a long corridor of rubble, not a building left standing."

Azerbaijan: Democracy is…

  29 January 2010

Önər Blog [AZ] posts a video [EN] made by the OL! Azerbaijani Youth Movement for the Democracy Video Challenge. OL! has been exemplary in its use of new media in the region and was co-founded by now imprisoned video blogging youth activist Adnan Hajizade.

Global Voices in Haiti: Our Team on the Ground

  29 January 2010

In the aftermath of the 12 January earthquake in Haiti, Global Voices has sent a two-member team to Port-au-Prince to augment our coverage of recovery efforts, and stimulate local participation in citizen media. Here are details of the objectives Georgia Popplewell and Alice Backer are working towards.

Syria: A Short Story

  29 January 2010

Medad blog published a sarcastic short story [ar] depicting a Muslim cleric and a Christian cleric passionately discussing virtue and interfaith understanding as each of them tries to claim a spot that allows them to peep through a crack in the wall of a women's bathhouse.

Trinidad & Tobago: iThink, therefore iPad

  29 January 2010

“When iHeard Apple called the device iPad, iImmediately thought of tampons and iAm a man. iThink Apple has unwittingly provided fodder for stand up comedians and may have to change the name to something like iTouch-Big, iMoses or iAintKnow”: Trinidad and Tobago's This Beach Called Life has a lot to...