· February, 2008

Stories about Feature from February, 2008

Tanzania's Cabinet dissolved after corruption scandal

Events in Tanzania’s political scene are taking place so rapidly as Prime Minister and other ministers resign and the President dissolves the cabinet. From day one, Swahili bloggers have been posting commentary and updates of events as they take place at the parliament in the Tanzania's capital, Dodoma.

9 February 2008

Russia: An Electrician's View on Vasily Alexanyan's Case

While the previous Global Voices translation on Alexanyan's case dealt with the relative silence that surrounded Vasily Alexanyan internationally and a rather massive response from the Russian bloggers, below is a story of one Russian electrician who was not aware of Aleksanyan's existence at all. Written by LJ user becky-sharpe, this sketch may (or may not) reflect on how Aleksanyan's ordeal is viewed by those in Russia who do not rely on the online media as their primary sources of information.

9 February 2008

Syria: Free Tariq Campaign

Syrian blogs are abuzz at the moment with another crack down on freedom of speech by the Syrian regime. Except, this time it's one of our own. Tariq's case took around six months to catch the attention of bloggers - six months he's still languishing in jail, writes Yazan Badran.

8 February 2008

Hong Kong: From Sex to Police Scandal

It has been 10 days that Edison Chen’s sex photos scandal occupied the front page of local newspapers (ESWN has summed up local newspapers report everyday.) The issue is not...

7 February 2008

Kyrgyzstan: Echos of the Parliamentary Elections

The results of the Parliamentary elections of December 2007 and distribution of seats among deputies from each party have spurred lots of discussion and criticism among various human rights activists,...

7 February 2008

Blog Outreach in Madagascar – From Forumists to Bloggers

We are delighted to introduce to you the first of the second round grantees of Rising Voices. Foko Blog Club is a blog outreach arm of FOKO, a project founded by four bloggers committed to the development of Madagascar by teaching blogging skills to the young people in Madagascar.

5 February 2008

USA: Voices Without Votes

There are few subjects that spark the imagination of bloggers worldwide - and United States foreign policy is one of them. Today, Global Voices is launching a new website with Reuters that opens a window on the global conversation about the 2008 presidential election in the USA. It's called Voices Without Votes.

5 February 2008

Israel: One Wall Down, a New Reality in the Middle East

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians poured into the Egyptian side of Rafah as the wall on the Egypt-Gaza border was brought down by Hamas over a week ago. Egyptian attempts to revert the situation to its previous state where they hold little or no responsibilities, have failed. Many bloggers have been writing about this new reality in the Middle East, having immense implications on both Egyptian politics and Israeli security.

5 February 2008

Colombia: United in a March Against the FARC

For the first time in Colombia´s history, an initiative which began on the internet managed to become a massive, worldwide event in just one month. The February 4th demonstration against the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) , began as an idea on a FaceBook group "A Million Voices Against the FARC" and then it snowballed into a worldwide event with marches in 133 different cities around the world.

5 February 2008

Juliana Rincón: A multi-tasking blogger

Meet Juliana Ricón Parra, a multi-tasking blogger from Peru, now living in Colombia. She has been a Global Voices Author for two years and has just started a new role as Video Editor. Juliana talks about blogging, her participation in the citizen media project HiperBarrio, the new challenges in her professional life and the lovely South American food.

3 February 2008

Japan: Insider trading at public broadcaster NHK (Part 2)

The uproar last week about the discovery of insider trading at Japan's public broadcaster NHK has died down, with former Asahi Breweries advisor Fukuchi Shigeo having taken over for beleaguered NHK president Hashimoto Genichi, who resigned days ahead of his scheduled end-of-term. This week, more comments from bloggers on the insider trading scandal.

2 February 2008

Middle East: Internet Outage Enrages Bloggers

What is a blogger without access to the Internet? This was the dilemma facing tens of thousands of bloggers in parts of the Middle East and Asia, after an optical cable in the Mediterranean was damaged, crippling millions of Internet users. No surprise, some of the region's bloggers were fuming especially when they realised that it could take up to two weeks to fix the damage.

1 February 2008

Young citizen journalists getting into the act in Kolkata

Last time we featured the Neighborhood Diaries project, participants from Kolkata’s slums were learning more about their neighborhood. In this week's feature we read their profiles of local characters and find out more about their daily lives. The weekly workshop also got more interesting with enactments of skits regarding their neighborhood's problems and the brainstorming of solutions.

1 February 2008