Global Voices

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The world is talking, are you listening?

On Dec. 1, Chavdar Yanev set up a tent in front of the Bulgarian Supreme Judicial Council in Sofia and went on hunger strike to protest a judicial system that allows cases filed by individuals against state institutions to continue for years. Or even decades: Yanev and his wife, Latinka Georgieva, have been in a legal battle against Toplofikatsiya [bg], a state monopoly that provides heating to the country's residents, for nearly 12 years [bg].

A flashmob in solidarity with Yanev, organized via Facebook group “We are against high prices for electricity” [bg] (more than 3,000 members), is scheduled for Dec. 4.

This poster, urging people to come to a flashmob to support Chavdar Yanev, has been shared by 2,060 Facebook users.

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LiveJournal, owned and managed by Russian company SUP Media, just announced [ru] a grant program that will target the development of “interesting, but less well known blogs.” The grant funds could be used by a starting blogger to promote their blog through various paid “promo” services run by the company.

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In February 2013, São Tomé and Príncipe will become the fourth Portuguese language country undersigning the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, announced the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law. Last June, Law Professor at the University of Macau, Fernando Simões, recommended the accession [pt], claiming that it “promotes confidence and security of international trade agreements”.

Fourteen Mexican women [die] each day as a result of violence according to a report published [es] by the Fundación Origen women’s’ rights group.

Erwin C. highlights this report in a post about violence against women in Mexico in the blog The Latin Americanist. Erwin also looks at the record of the newly sworn in president, Enrique Peña Nieto, on this matter.

Ordinary citizens in China will choose to take the path of petition visit or Shangfang to voice out their grievance. In response, many local government officials would hire agents to detain the petitioners from their home provinces in “black jails” before they have a chance to complain to the Beijing authorities. A recent “fake news” about the 10 agents being sentenced by a court exploded on Weibo, China's twitter on December 2, 2012. TeaLeafNation covered the story with a lot of background information.

For those who are interested in alternative news and commentary related to China, Sinica podcast runs a series of English podcasts focusing on Chinese politics, economics, international relations and how it all relates to China.