13 April 2011

Stories from 13 April 2011

Mexico: Netizens Deploy the “Failed State” Meme

The idea of Mexico as an actual or potential "failed state," pending since its introduction into public discourse in 2008 following news of a report to this effect by the U.S. Joint Forces, has become a popular meme in its own right on the Internet, as bloggers and other netizens deploy the parlance (signaled on Twitter by the ubiquitous hashtag #estadofallido) for their own critical purposes.

13 April 2011

Puerto Rico: Blogging Again

After a long hiatus, one of Puerto Rico's blogging pioneers, Manuel Clavell Carrasquillo, has returned to Estruendomudo [es]. He comes back with a brief reflection [es] on Pablo Casals and...

13 April 2011

Cuba: Targeting Bloggers?

“The personal freedoms of members of the alternative blogosphere are at risk after the official media publicly accused them of being mercenaries”: Laritza Diversent says that referring to bloggers in...

13 April 2011

Jamaica: Divine Poetry

Diaspora litblogger Geoffrey Philp says of Kwame Dawes’ poem Shook Foil: “There is a divine symmetry of the human with music and the landscape– evidence of a ‘natural mystic’ transforming...

13 April 2011

Portugal: Squatting an Empty School in Porto

A group of citizens called ES.COL.A (school) [an acronymn for self-managed collective space] has occupied a Portuguese public school that had been abandoned by the municipality of Porto 5 years ago....

13 April 2011

Interview with Gaël Brassac, Global Voices Translator

Translators are the behind-the-scenes contributors who allow Global Voices readers to access our content in other languages. One of them is Gaël Brassac who lives in France, but who always had a special place in his heart for Japan and strongly believes that the nation will recover swiftly from its current predicament.

13 April 2011

Japan: Quakebook, a book born on Twitter

Journalist and blogger Jake Adelstein presents Quakebook [en], “a compilation of art, stories, and essays to raise money for Japan earthquake survivors” which started with a single tweet. The book,...

13 April 2011

Mozambique: Police Attack Protesting Workers

On the 6th of April, police officers from the Rapid Intervention Force (FIR) used violence to put an end to a protest by the employees of the private security firm G4S. On Facebook, cybernauts showed their indignation with such acts of brutality and questioned on the role of police, justice and human rights.

13 April 2011

China: Cleaning Up Shenzhen

Mary Ann O'Donnell blogs about the recent urban cleansing movement in Shenzhen, which has rid 80,000 “dangerous people” out of Shenzhen city. While most of the mainstream media praised the...

13 April 2011

Cambodia: Durian statue in Kampot

Tales from an Expat reports that the durian statue in Kampot, Cambodia is now complete in time for the Khmer New Year. Durian is a tasty fruit in Southeast Asia.

13 April 2011

Thailand: Censorship video

Jon Russell interviews ‘Madastro’, a young Thai student who made a video about censorship in Thailand. The video has already generated more than 100,000 hits on YouTube.

13 April 2011