Global Voices

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The world is talking, are you listening?

Update:  Here is the full list of the 49 candidates [fr] for the presidential elections. It does not include the current president of the transition.

As the deadline to submit candidacies for the Malagasy presidential elections ends today (28/04), a few surprising candidates have allegedly come forth. While the earlier candidates were relatively new to the general public,  a few prominent political players from the past are expected to contest: former president Didier Ratsiraka, current president of the transition Andry Rajoelina [fr] and the spouse of former president Ravalomanana, Lalao Ravalomanana.

The journeyman.tv published on March 25 a detailed investigation using undercover filming to expose the booming child sex trade in Madagascar:
One mother in the film testifies:

My daughter was at school, I had no money and no job so she decided to become a prostitute. I finally decided not to stop her

Total Bemolanga Watch reports that [fr] awyers in Madagascar estimated that the legal framework of the mining code was not conceived to apply to the shear size of the new gold mining exploitations [mg] that have been developping in Ambatondrazaka, Madagascar. The World Bank and the IMF have just implemented a new fund to help developing countries better negotiate mining contracts for their natural ressources.

Since 2009, an additional 4 millions people now earn less than $1.25/day, 500,000 more children have dropped out of school and 336,000 jobs were lost because of the prolonged political crisis.

Blogger Razoky summarizes [fr] the latest economic report on Madagascar.

Lingua Project Global Voices in Malagasy

Lingua project Global Voices in Malagasy has just published its 5,000th post. The project was started on September 12, 2007 and was one of the first African lingua project. There are currently 16 active Malagasy translators, among them is one of the youngest Global Voices translator, 16-year-old Radifera Felana Candy.

Marie-Clémence & Cesar Paes present a trailer of Maraina, a film that showcases, in their words,  ”the first opera to be created in the Indian Ocean region” [fr]. More »