Stories about Ideas from December, 2012
Japan's Kanji of the Year 2012
The Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation has announced the kanji of the year 2012 is gold (金) on December 12, 2012. How do netizens conceive this announcement and how do they look back this year?
Costa Rica: Of Mills and a New Year
There were days when I felt the mill go slowly, too slowly, desperately slowly. Other days, I felt the mill spinning vertiginously, so I couldn't take a breathe and just...
“Nobody Gets Mad on the Last Day”
Remembering his school days, Tomas Bradanovic [es] writes on his self-named blog “at elementary school, the last day of school year was the occasion for commiting any kind of mischievousness...
Slovak Blogger Promotes Fairness in State Support for Businesses
Blogger Robert Huran reports [sk] on the initial success of his online form [sk] for entrepreneurs, which was created two months ago in response to the news [sk] of the...
Macedonia: Beer Belly Blog Anniversary
The “Beer Belly” blog celebrated [mk, mk] its first anniversary. Its author @Twibi thanked members of the Macedonian Twitter community who have been bringing him beer samples from their trips...
Brazilian Memes and Internet Culture in 2012
What was the best of the crazy world of Brazilian memes and Internet culture in 2012? One thing is for sure “Brazil can do virals”, says Anna Heim from The...
Macedonia: Nude Art Twitter Calendar for Charity
Twelve Macedonian women – regular Twitter users – took part in a humanitarian project organized by @IlinaBookbox, two photographers and one designer via the hashtag #ТвитерКалендар (Macedonian for ‘Twitter Calendar’)....
Promoting Recycling in Macedonia
Continuing the tradition that started last year (en, mk, nl, es), the Macedonian Twitter community has erected a new Christmas Tree made of plastic bottles (mk, mk, photos 1, 2,...
A special Christmas gift
Peruvian blogger Cyrano [es] from Columna 17 ends his five-part series of Christmas-related posts republishing an article by Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez and says [es]: I hope you...
Two Coins for the Boatman
From Guatemala, Fe de Rata‘s blogger Juan Pablo Dardón, lists his plan [es] for the end of times: I woke up early and put two golden coins one for each...
Inappropriate Analogy for Greece-Macedonia Name Dispute
Responding to an assertion by Gerald Knaus… Athens and Skopje face a [prisoner's dilemma]: if neither side believes that a solution is possible, and acts on this, both will lose....
Presenting the Balkan Minorities
Fifteen young journalists from six different countries have produced a series of personal stories about representatives of the minorities (in a broad sense) from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia, and...
Meet Global Voices Contributor – Janet Gunter
Global Voices in Spanish editor Juan Arellano interviews GV contributor and world traveller Janet Gunter, on her work in our community and on various projects.
Independent French Data Journalism Website OWNI Under Threat of Closure
News of the imminent demise of OWNI (OWNI.fr), an independent French data journalism media outlet, surfaced last week. Famous for its close collaboration with WikiLeaks, OWNI developed the WarLogs application and conducted a great deal of analyses on the SpyFiles among others, and has been consistently reporting on surveillance, internet governance and freedom online.
A Research On Gender Sensitive Speech Online
The Internet Democracy project in India is conducting a research project that looks at how women in India, who are social media users, deal with speech addressed to them online...
Netizens “Bow Farewell” to Guyanese Writer Jan Carew
Guyanese writer Jan Carew passed away at his home in Louisville, Kentucky on December 5th. One of the most prominent West Indian writers of his generation, Carew was a poet, playwright, novelist and scholar, best known for his 1958 novel “Black Midas” and his 1964 polemic “Moscow Is Not My Mecca”. Caribbean netizens pay their respects.
Access Innovation Prize 2012 Recognizes Costa Rican Facebook App
Access.org announced the winners of the 1st Annual Access Tech Innovation Prize Awards, a new initiative that awards ideas that use information technology to promote human rights and address issues that are important to communities from across the world. Costa Rican Facebook-integrated app FueraJustoOrozco.com ("out Justo Orozco") was announced as one of the winners.
Colombia: Cali Organises Its Third Barcamp
On Monday, December 17, the third edition of Barcamp Cali -a Free Culture event organised in the city of Cali, Colombia- will take place. The event has created a buzz among netizens in Cali, who have been tweeting about it under the hashtag #barcampcali3.
Interview with Maksim Kononenko: Russian Non-Oppositionist Blogging
Kononenko is widely considered to be one of the RuNet’s pioneers, and has worked as a publicist, a columnist, a programmer, and a television host, among other things. He is a self-described "liberal," though his political positions place him squarely outside the Russian opposition.
Brazil Bids Farewell to Niemeyer, Revolutionary of Modern Architecture
Remembered primarily as the architect who designed Brazil's capital city, Brasília, and for having remained faithful to his communist ideals throughout his entire adult life, Oscar Niemeyer passed away on the night of December 5 in Rio de Janeiro after succumbing to a respiratory infection. He was 104 years old.
