28 October 2011

Stories from 28 October 2011

Ukraine: Best Ukrainian Blog Awards Competition Launched

  28 October 2011

Watcher.com.ua [uk], a Ukrainian Internet business and social media marketing website, launches [uk] Best Ukrainian Blog Awards (BUBA). Participants may be nominated and voted for by Internet users between Oct. 26 and Nov. 18, 2011. Winners will be announced on Nov. 19 at Microsoft Blogfest 2011 [uk].

East Timor: Investing in Creativity and Culture

  28 October 2011

Barcelona artist David Palazón ended up in East Timor as a break from his career. Now he is coordinating a project to research Timorese culture in hopes of creating a school for the creative industries, to stimulate jobs in the non-oil economy, small businesses, and tourism.

Open Access Africa: Spreading Knowledge, Increasing Collaboration

  28 October 2011

We celebrate Open Access Week with a special focus on Open Access Africa. As the internet lowers the bar for publishing and disseminating information, print-era publishing models still keep African researchers and students separated from colleagues in different countries and their ideas. How has Open Access changed scholarship in Africa?

Cuba: Internet & Human Rights

  28 October 2011

“2011 will hopefully be looked back as the year when both the right to internet access and the threat to internet freedom were both recognized and tech companies collaborating with human rights organizations set out standards to address the problem and uphold a fundamental right”: Notes from the Cuban Exile...

Cuba: Dissident Fired

  28 October 2011

Pedazos de La Isla blogs about a young man whose political views have allegedly “cost him serious impediments such as detentions, threats, and other violations, one of the most recent being that he was fired from his job for being a dissident.”

Russia: Fake ‘Crowd Sourced’ Election Monitoring Portal Launched by the Ruling Party

RuNet Echo  28 October 2011

Gazeta.ru writes [ru] about government-sponsored NGOs that help simulate legitimacy of the election process. Among others authors mention ktonarushil.ru, a fake crowdsourcing monitoring portal launched by “United Russia” party. Not only it reminds kartanarusheniy.ru [an authentic monitoring website run by independent election monitor “Golos.org”] but it also doesn't allow to file...

Russia: Crowd-Sourced Citizen Lawmaking Platform

RuNet Echo  28 October 2011

The Economist writes about WikiVote (e.g. see projects dedicated to the laws on education, Sberbank, state-owned bank), Russian croudsourcing platform to comment and contribute to the creation of the laws. Pavel Burov, creator of the platform, claims his project can ‘prevent idiocy [in lawmaking] from happening.’

Taiwan, Taipei: Occupiers’ last front torn down

  28 October 2011

Green Party member Wang Zhong-ming posts his picture on facebook of he sitting in a damaged tent torn down by the police near Taipei 101, the counterpart symbol of WallStreet in Taiwan. On the other hand, open data advocate Schee Zhu-han analyzed the flaws[zht] of the online strategies in different phases of the...

Sri Lanka: Working Towards Uniting the Nation

  28 October 2011

The 26 year long civil war in Sri Lanka has left many scars and it is an uphill task to bridge all divides and start the reconciliation to unite people. 'Sri Lanka Unites' is engaging the youth across the country to build good leadership with hope and reconciliation who will unite the nation one day.

Taiwan: The Story of Chiou Ho-shun

  28 October 2011

Chiou Ho-shun, a death row inmate in Taiwan, may be executed at any time. He said in the mini-documentary, “I hope you can save me, but if it’s too late, please scatter my ashes in the Longfeng harbour, and buy a meatball, come and see me.” In the documentary, you...