Stories from Quick Reads from September, 2013
Petition Call to Ban Ivory Trade in Hong Kong
Tom Grundy has more background about the local Hong Kong law on illegal ivory trade.
Chilean Education: ‘No More Market Mechanisms, No More SIMCE’
Stop SIMCE [es] or (“Alto al SIMCE” in Spanish) is a campaign organized by a group of academics, teachers and students who want to put an end to the Education Quality Measurement System (SIMCE for its initials in Spanish), a standardized testing system used to evaluate Chilean students. The group explains...
Maldives Presidential Votes Will Need A Second Round
88% of the 240,000 voters in Maldives voted last Saturday (7 September, 2013) to elect a president, hoping to end the long political turmoil. As Mohamed Nasheed, the first elected president of Maldives, who was ousted in a coup 20 months ago, couldn't secure a majority, the poll headed to...
VIDEO: Exploring the Galapagos Islands with Google Maps
Google Maps has released a video on their trip “to collect 360-degree Street View imagery” of the Galapagos Islands. The blog Lat Long explains: The extensive Street View imagery of the Galapagos Islands will not only allow armchair travellers to experiences the islands from their desktop computer, but it will also play...
Comments On The Proposed RTI Bill Of Bhutan
The Bhutanese Prime Minister has sought comments on the proposed Right to Information (RTI) Bill that is due discussed during the upcoming Parliament session. In a long letter to the Prime Minister, blogger Yeshey Dorji comments that Bhutan is not ready for the enactment of the RTI Bill.
UNESCO Patron of First SEE Science Promotion Conference in Serbia
The Center for the Promotion of Science (CPN), under UNESCO patronage, is hosting the First Regional Science Promotion Conference with the aim of gathering science promotion professionals, practitioners and enthusiasts from Southeast Europe. The conference program will discuss science from a scientific, but also from an educational and economic point...
400 Cuban Doctors Go to Brazil
David Oliveira de Souza, a doctor and professor from the Research Institute of the Sirio-Libanés Hospital, sent an open letter to the more than four hundred Cuban doctors who recently arrived in Brazil and who constitute the first group of a total of 4,000 physicians who are expected to come to this...
Hackathon Mozambique Offers Design Contest
Hackathon Mozambique launched a graphic design contest [pt] for the upcoming third civic hackathon, and the deadline for submissions is already near: September 14, 2013. The event, sponsored by Mozambique's Ministry of Science and Technology with the support of Sweden and Finland, will take place in early December and is being organized in an open group...
Belgium FEMEN Leaves The International Movement
“We are announcing the closure of the branch FEMEN Belgium. We took this decision unanimously because of different views upon the internal organization of the international movement FEMEN. We have no regrets, we conducted our actions with sincerity. We will continue the fight, there is no question about that, but...
Music Flashmob in Hong Kong Times Square
An independent folk rock band, Noughts and Exes, teamed up with a number of indie bands occupied the Times Square in Hong Kong and held a flashmob music performance last weekend.
In Cage with Chinese Political Activist Wang Bingzhang
More background information about Wang Bingzhang.
Guinea Bissau's Parliament Rejects Amnesty for Coup Perpretrators
A law granting amnesty to those involved in the Guinea Bissau's April 2012 military coup was rejected by the national parliament on Tuesday, September 10, 2013. On the eve of the opening of the special session, the Guinean Human Rights League had repudiated the amnesty law proposed by the transition government in an open...
Colombian Teachers Begin National Strike
Teachers from the Colombian Federation of Educators FECODE [es] have started [es] a national strike to demand better health plans, an end to “the policy of privatization” in education, and other issues [es]. The strike will include regional protests and a march towards Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. Catalina Vanegas...
Chinese Pop Song: Rule Breaking Animal
Rensi from ChinaSMACK translated and explained the lyrics of a recently released pop song, ‘Rule-Breaking Animals’, written by a 27-year-old independent singer-songwriter Xu Song. The song is about the conflict between chengguan (city management officers) and street vendors and it has generated more than 12 million listen in QQ music...
Story Behind the “Cancelled” Beijing Independent Film Festival
Like other sensitive events, the Beijing Independent Film Festival was announced cancelled but quietly had its full program of screenings and panels held on schedule, except the opening ceremony. Liz Tung from Beijing Cream interviewed the festival's artistic director Dong Bingfeng on the story behind “cancellation”.
A Political Solution for Syria
Elias Muhanna, at Lebanese blog Qifa Nabki, shares some of his readers views on a political solution in Syria in this post. He writes: As the Obama administration cracks heads and bends ears on Capitol Hill (with the help of a legion of AIPAC lobbyists) in the hope of winning...
Humour: Potential Targets in the Strike on Syria
The Qnion – or Lebanese blog Qifa Nabki, shares the scenario of the “likely military strike on Syria.” The plan includes: we’re primarily considering two sets of Tomahawk missile strikes (between 8 and 11) launched by the USS Mahan and the USS Gravely against a set of military bases in...
Indian Financial Crisis And Its Impact On Bangladesh
Jyoti Rahman at Alal O Dulal analyses the recent Indian economic slowdown and contemplates how the ‘crisis’ may be affecting Bangladesh.
Parents Pardon Son's Murderers – Justice for Shahzeb Campaigners Dismayed
The parents of brutally murdered 20-year-old Shahzeb Khan filed an application in court pardoning their son's murderers, who were sentenced to death in Pakistan in June 2013. The pardon has created shock and disappointment in the thousands of “Justice for Shahzeb Khan” campaigners who through Facebook and Twitter (#JusticeforShahzebKhan), and offline vigils...
East Timor: “Literacy Often Falls by the Way Side”
Marking the International Literacy Day, September 8, The Asia Foundation's blog, In Asia presents striking numbers on the quality of educational outcomes in Timor-Leste, a country where “education, and literacy in particular, too often falls by the wayside”: World Bank research found that 70 percent of first grade students in Timor-Leste were...
Journalism, Activism and Passion: A Look at Citizen Media in Brazil
[All links lead to Portuguese language pages] “Citizen Media encompasses passion” and “does away with the arrogance of journalists”, states Débora Medeiros, co-editor of the Portuguese language branch of Global Voices. She was referring to the circulation of information over the net during an interview with Brazilian e-magazine, ‘Impressão Digital 126′ (#ID126)....
