Women wash the stairs of the Igreja do Bomfim (Church of Bomfim) in Salvador da Bahia during the 2017 Lavagem do Bonfim festival, which takes place annually on the second Thursday after Epiphany. The festival, which blends traditions from the religions of Catholicism and Candomblé, begins with a massive procession from Salvador's Lower City to Bomfim's Sacred Hill. Photo by Tatiana Azeviche from Turismo Bahia's Flickr account (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Thank you, GVers, for all your contributions in January 2022! As a result of the recent revamp of our internal stats reports (thanks, Jer!), our review of this month's highlights includes some additional info.

Welcome to the following new contributors who published their first GV story or translation in January 2022!

Alessandra Paris, Ananya, Bernadette Debnath, Dimitra Stergiou, Dr. Julius Taji, Fidèle Juliette Ngo Ngimbous, همدان العليي (Hamdan Alaly), Hans Gutbrod, Henri Galmiche, Kayo Oliveira, Maria Epasto, Marlene Laruelle, Moushumi Basu, Muhammad Awad, Nicolás Lazo Jerez, Okba Mohammed, Peter Leth, Siddharth Akali, Yaqi Yang.

Media and conference appearances, and other achievements by GVers:

• Sanjib Chaudhary‘s short story “The goats and the cow” was selected for inclusion in the anthology “A Glimpse Into My Country: An Anthology Of International Short Stories,” which was published in December 2021
• In January Rising Voices hosted a series of virtual Mayan Language Digital Activism workshops for participants in the Yucatán Peninsula
• January 5: Our managing editor Filip Noubel talked about Kazakhstan on Russophone Azerbaijani internet talk show düzdanışaq. Filip appeared on the same show on December 13, 2021 talking about China, its Belt and Road Initiative and the Uyghur issue
• January 6: Yevgeniya Plakhina contributed additional reporting to the Guardian news report, “Dozens of protesters and police dead amid Kazakhstan unrest“
• January 14: Filip Noubel unpacked the Kazakhstan issue for Chinese-speaking audiences
• January 20: Our Greater Central Asia editor Paolo Sorbello discussed his article
  ‘Our activism won't stop': The Oyan movement recounts the January protests in Kazakhstan on the This is Hell podcast
• January 22: Nwachkwu Egbunike appeared in a documentary by CNA Singapore titled “Silk Road 2.0: China in a Post-Pandemic World,” talking about China's Belt and Road and Health Silk Road initiatives on the African continent. Nwach's interventions were based on the research he conducted as part of GV's Civic Media Observatory Coronavirus monitoring project and its Chinese Belt and Road Initiative investigation. Nwach's interview begins at the 40:14-minute mark
• January 27: Filip Noubel appeared on a panel on Clubhouse as part of the African Languages Conference on the topic “How Do Global Citizens Maintain their Primary Languages?“
• The Korean YouTube channel 겨레말TV published a playlist of poetry readings by our Sub-Saharan Africa co-editor Njeri Wangari and members of the Rising Voices network. The readings were part of the “Sustainable Development of Indigenous Languages” forum held in November 2021.

Number of stories published on GV in English in January 2022: 98 (up from 92 in December)

Number of translations and original stories published on Lingua sites in January 2022: 331

The 10 most active Lingua sites in January 2022:

1. Global Voices en Español             87 posts
2. Global Voices teny Malagasy      50 posts
3. Global Voices in Italiano              38 posts
4. Global Voices στα Ελληνικά         37 posts
5. Global Voices по-українськи    20 posts
6. Global Voices in Arabic                16 posts
7. Global Voices em Português       13 posts
8. Global Voices na srpskom            13 posts
9. Global Voices по-русски               12 posts
10. Global Voices en Français            10 posts

Total pageviews (all sites) in January 2022: 440,739 (up from 368,658 in December)

Top 10 posts by pageviews in January 2022 (includes only recent posts):

1. Indians give Chinese places hilarious names after China renames 15 places in Arunachal Pradesh by Rezwan (11,426 pageviews)
2. Socializing with extremists and ‘hoaxers': Tennis star Novak Djokovic's controversial visit to Bosnia by Mirza Hota (11,418 pageviews)
3. Netizens mock China's suggestion that Omicron was brought to Beijing via a letter from Toronto by Oiwan Lam (6,581 pageviews)
4. Lagos’ train acquisition is Wisconsin's loss by Nwach Egbunike (3,873 pageviews)
5. ‘The Club,’ Netflix's new hit TV series, braves Turkey's troubled past by Arzu Geybullayeva (3,816 pageviews)
6. Why Beijing’s artificial snow at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games is stirring controversy by Richard Wanjohi (2,856 pageviews)
7. Jerusalem Christians: ‘We shrunk from 20% to 2% of population due to Israeli violence’ by Raseef22 (2,569 pageviews)
8. Internet watchdog finds encryption flaw in mandatory Chinese Olympic app by Oiwan Lam (1,687 pageviews)
9. Australian town of Onslow hits record 50.7 degrees Celsius, as global warming rolls on relentlessly by Kevin Rennie (1,590 pageviews)
10. Passengers stranded at Istanbul Airport stage a protest by Arzu Geybullayeva (1,580 pageviews)

Top 15 countries from which people visited GV sites in January 2022:

1. United States
2. Germany
3. France
4. Brazil
5. United Kingdom
6. Canada
7. Spain
8. Italy
9. Japan
10. India
11. Mexico
12. Philippines
13. Australia
14. Colombia
15. Russia