· September, 2012

Stories about Development from September, 2012

India: Build Your Own Map to Improve Your City

Transparent Chennai is a platform for citizen engagement to help the citizens of Chennai counter inaccurate or incomplete government data with crowdsourced maps, and make better claims on the government for their rights and entitlements.

29 September 2012

35 Million Escape Poverty – But Can Brazil Overcome Inequality?

The United Nations campaign to end poverty in 2015 is finding results in Brazil, home to 194 million people. Some 35 million Brazilians have escaped poverty over the last decade, but questions are nevertheless being raised concerning the government's effort to overcome inequality.

29 September 2012

Czech Republic: Roma Resist Evictions in Ostrava

This summer, Přednádraží, a small neighborhood in Ostrava, has been the site of an intense struggle against unlawful evictions of the predominantly Roma residents. Daniela Kantorova reports on the history of the area and ongoing struggle of its residents.

28 September 2012

Chad: Challenges to Freedom of Expression as Social Protests Grow

The recent arrests in Chad of three union officers and the editor of an independent newspaper are symptomatic of a disintegration of freedom of expression in the country. These arrests have come after protest movements against the impoverishment of Chad’s population and the privatization of the country’s resources.

27 September 2012

Peru: Activists Begin “Civic Crusade” in Defense of the Nanay River

In our first post in this tree-part series we briefly introduced some water-related issues in Iquitos, and later presented the controversy generated by the transnational Conoco Phillips and their exploration and search for hydrocarbons in the Nanay River basin. In this post we continue addressing the issue and discuss how organizations like the Water Committee are fighting this problem.

27 September 2012

Will China Fall Prey to the ‘Skyscraper Curse'?

By 2022, the number of skyscrapers in China will reach 1,318 compared to 563 in the United States. But according to one theory, the world's tallest buildings often rise on the eve of economic downturns...

27 September 2012

Russia: After the APEC Summit

RuNet Echo

The 2012 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vladivostok has come and gone. What remains is discussion of what APEC means to Russia’s Far East and the country as a whole. Bloggers' biggest issue, however, was President Putin's promise to send some APEC volunteers on a cruise to Japan, who went, and who did not.

21 September 2012

Kosovo: Venice Biennale “Newcomer”

Facebook page “Southeast Europe: People and Culture” notes that “Kosovo is one of this year's newcomers to the [Venice Biennale]”: The pavilion allows visitors to share their views on Kosovo's...

19 September 2012

China: Cancer Villages

Shelley Jiang from Tea Leaf Nation blogs about the painful cost of development in China – the increasing number of cancer villages all over the country: Officially and unofficially, the...

19 September 2012

Serbia: Gastarbeiters’ Houses

Nothing Against Serbia posts photos of the migrant workers’ houses in Eastern Serbia and explains the “Gastarbajterske Kuće” phenomenon: […] the effort to make money in the West (under arduous...

17 September 2012

Bangladesh: A Voice for the Challenged

Amader Kotha features the exemplary works of the award winning blogger Sabrina Sultana who is using blogs and other social media tools to improve the condition of the physically challenged...

17 September 2012

Should Uganda's Abortion Law Be Revised?

Ugandans are divided over the Center for Reproductive Rights and Development's campaign to revise the abortion law in Uganda. There are approximately 267,000 abortions carried out in Uganda every year, although the practice is currently illegal except where the life of the mother is in danger.

17 September 2012

China: RMB 4 Trillion Stimulus Package Questioned

In the past few months, some online public opinion leaders have openly criticized the Chinese government's RMB 4 trillion stimulus package introduced in 2008 during the global financial crisis. But Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has stressed that the government "will not hesitate to use" the surplus in the upcoming budget year.

15 September 2012

China: Traffic Jam

Chengdu Living blogs about the problems behind traffic jam in China: the rapidly increasing urban population, number of car owners, poor city planning because of corruption.

14 September 2012