Comics for everyone

https://globalvoices.org/2017/02/03/marvel-meets-orishas-a-brazilian-artist-is-turning-african-gods-into-superheroes/

In Brazil a 40 year old architecture graduate decided to bring to life ancient African Gods in the style of Marvel and DC superheroes. Brazil has a rich culture that borrows a lot from African nations, many of its populace have African roots, when the Portuguese settled in Brazil they forcefully brought in about 5 million slaves in a short period of time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Brazil).

He started a crowdfunding project that quickly met its goal and went beyond its 4000$ goal, he has found success in his work as he quickly released more of the “Orixas”. His first publishing  was of Xango the God of justice, and like a very familiar Avenger he wields a hammer which he uses to fight evil with. I recommend checking his other art work as well as its truly impressive.

South Korea's Young Workers Earn ‘Passion Wages’, Meaning Hardly Anything at All

Mistreatment of labor is a common theme across the globe, and South Korea is no exception. Dubbed “Passion Wages”, a wave underpayment is making its way across the country that is specifically targeting younger workers. The idea is that because young workers such as interns have such passion for the work they are doing it is acceptable to pay them less than a livable wage, and often less than minimum wage. In fact, in extreme cases it was found that certain companies weren’t paying their younger workers with money at all – instead in clothing in the case of a textile company, and in-game-currency from a developing company. Given that this has mostly been targeted at younger people, the majority of the backlash has been through social media. This discontent can be seen quantitatively too, as the unemployment rate of young Korean workers hit a high of 9% in late 2014. If not a direct correlation, it is certainly indicative of the growing discrepancies between the job market and young workforce.

Obtained from The Hankyoreh Media Group

Hopefully the backlash from this will lead to new laws that protect the rights of interns whether they are paid or unpaid. Of course not every internship can be paid, but when a company takes on new interns a certain level of transparency and responsibility on the part of the employer is necessary to make sure that no one is taken advantage of – at least according to the South Korean youth.

This article is titled “What is More Convincing for World Cup 2018 Fans? Russia’s Edgy New Tourism Logo or Their Governments’ Dire Warnings?”. The World Cup is being hosted by Russia this year at 11 different locations across the country. The article details the intense competition between countries to be chosen as the host country for the 2018 World Cup. Russia’s federal tourism agency launched their new brand for this called, “The Whole World Within Russia” to show the large amount of different cultures within the Russian Federation.

New Logo for Russia’s Tourism Advertisement// russia-brand.com

The article explains that despite the preparation for the masses of tourists for the games, the estimation of the number of people has been lowered due to other countries warning their citizens about traveling in Russia and even showcases several tweets by both the United States and France with updated travel advisories to Russia that get denounced by the Russian Foreign Ministry. The article also includes how the tourism agency looks more towards Latin America for the bigger tourism stays since they are geographically farther away than fans who live in Europe. Even if it is mostly during the month of June, there will indeed be a whole world within Russia for the 2018 World Cup.

The images of the tweets in the article are links to the actual country’s news pages that wrote articles about the travel advisories. Many of the statements made were highlighted as links to the articles the information was taken from, mainly is Russian news. For example, the article explained how Russia was working with FIFA on a visa-free travel regime for people during the World Cup to make traveling easier for tourists. This can be investigated by clicking on the highlighted text which takes you to the FIFA World Cup website that gives details about what is being called the “Fan ID”.

This article was written by Christopher Moldes, a contributor of Global Voices for over a year and a half, who writes selectively about events in Russian and Eastern Europe. The supporting evidence in this article about the countries who updated their travel advisories to their citizens were tweets of people who mostly were against the increased safety risks put out by said countries. There was nothing mentioned on if there was actual empirical evidence that would warrant these updated advisories in the article either. Overall, it was not an opinion piece as much as informative, but there was still some satirical phrases towards the countries who were trying to deter citizens from travelling to Russia for the 2018 World Cup.

This article examines a current environmental and political issue surrounding Chiloé, a Chilean island in the south of the country. Suffering from an ecological phenomenon known as the “red tide”, the waters around Chiloé have become subject to “excessive accumulations of algae” resulting in “elevated concentrations of toxins (Rivera, 2016).” A direct threat to the local fishing industry, many local fishermen feel that that the Chilean government hasn’t been proactive enough in finding solutions to solve the red tide problem.

To highlight the local fishermen’s discontent with the government and overall worsening ecological situation, the article includes an interview between Global Voices, a member of the Thinking Chiloé organization, and a member of the Ocean for Everyone organization. Both members are Chilean and are vinculated in the local Chiloé society. Basically, both Chileans suggest that the root of the ecological and environmental problems facing Chiloé stem from the Chilean government. The Chilean government is to blame because they are the ones who introduced the massive salmon industry into the region 40 years prior, leading to massive pollution and overfishing in the area. This interview serves as a great source for evidence because it includes two local Chiloé perspectives that are in tune with the Chiloé fishing community. In other words, this interview provides an authentic perspective of the environmental problem that would otherwise go unnoticed by major media coverage.

Image from Chiloé https://es.globalvoices.org/2016/05/04/emergencia-ecologica-en-la-isla-chilena-de-chiloe-lleva-a-pescadores-artesanales-a-tomarse-las-calles/

There are many implications the article makes by giving the local Chiloé society a voice in its struggle to get resources from the government. For one, it shows that major media coverage is extremely biased to sensational topics and does not always offer authentic coverage on local matters. On the other hand, the article suggests that local grievances can be addressed properly and handled correctly when these grievances are expressed peacefully and respectfully. This is shown by the deal made by the Chilean government and local fishing community 3 weeks after this article was published to improve the situation.

Sources:

Rivera, Elizabeth. “Chiloé Fishermen to the World: ‘Communities Must Unite!’ · Global Voices.” Global Voices, 23 May 2016, globalvoices.org/2016/05/23/chiloe-fishermen-to-the-world-communities-must-unite/.

https://globalvoices.org/2017/10/12/chinas-sina-weibo-hires-1000-supervisors-to-censor-harmful-content-including-womens-legs/

The news demonstrates the origin of the policy “1000 Weibo Supervisors” and its after effects about the complaint on unequal treatments of women’s right to post body pictures. On August 11, 2017, the Cyberspace Administration launched an investigation into the three leading enterprises Tencent, Baidu, and Sina Weibo on whether their platforms had violated the laws to inadequately manage information published by their users. As the conclusion of this investigation illustrated, all ‘the three had violated Article 47 of the Cybersecurity Law by hosting “information of violence and terror, false rumors, pornography, and other information that jeopardizes national security, public safety, and social order.’” Therefore, Sina Weibo then started to recruit its 1000 users to report on illegal and harmful information. As a result, the criticism on this policy and the qualification of those supervisors boomed, and further conflicts were intensified by those young women’s photos labeled to be “pornographic”. Such policy was questioned to be gender inequalities as women “forfeit” the rights to post their images with body exposed, even there is nothing sensitive information. The evidence shared in the article was mainly composed of original users’ comments published on Sina Weibo. According to the quotations, the evidence is needless to say to be credible, also supportive effectively.

Lam, Oiwan. “China’s Sina Weibo Hires 1,000 Supervisors to Censor ‘Harmful Content’—Including Women’s Legs.” Global Voices, 12 October 2017. https://globalvoices.org/2017/10/12/chinas-sina-weibo-hires-1000-supervisors-to-censor-harmful-content-including-womens-legs/