· August, 2007

Stories about Breaking News from August, 2007

Turkey is Typing….WordPress Still Blocked

Last week Sami Ben Gharbia did an excellent posting about the blockage of the Wordpress blogging platform in Turkey, this week we will examine what Turkish bloggers have to say about it. There is anger, resentment, and sense of utter amazement at the absurdness of the situation. And yet, there is a powerful spirit of strength in combating this ban.

31 August 2007

China: Websites Forced To Close By Police

Vapano from a data company D2EX reported that many Internet Data Centers have received notices from Gong-an (Police department) which forced them to close down thousands of websites. To prevent...

30 August 2007

Azerbaijan: Building collapse

Having lived and worked in Azerbaijan, Carpetblogger is not surprised by the news that a newly-built highrise collapsed in the capital Baku due to poor building standards.

30 August 2007

Afghanistan: Hostage deal

Although 11 hostages still remain in the hands of their kidnappers, Carl Robichaud speculates why the Taliban agreed to release the Korean missionary workers who have been held hostage for...

30 August 2007

Chinese cartoon cops patrolling websites

From September, 1st, Beijing’s new virtual cops will be active on 13 of China’s portals, including China’s biggest blog-hosting services, Sohu.com and Sina.com. By the end of the year, the virtual police’s patrols are expected to cover all websites registered with Beijing servers.

29 August 2007

Egypt: Is Mubarak Dead?

“I got a call late tonight from a friend asking, “is Hosni Mubarak dead?” I dont quite know where he got his information from but supposedly there is a rumor...

29 August 2007

Morocco: The Death of Butcher Basri

Driss Basri, one of Morocco's most powerful figures during the past 50 years, has died in Paris at age 69. Jillian York brings us the latest reactions from Moroccan bloggers writing in Arabic, French and English.

29 August 2007

Afghanistan: Releasing the hostages

Although the Korean hostages are likely to come free after more than a month in custody in Afghanistan, OneFreeKorea is unhappy with the deal struck with the Taliban. In the...

29 August 2007

Greece: On Fire

We've probably all heard it in the news by now: Greece is ablaze. Today the fires reached the ancient city of Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympics and home of...

27 August 2007

Bangladesh: under curfew

Civil unrest began in Bangladesh on the 20th of August when a petty dispute broke out concerning comments passed by armed forces personnel during a soccer match at a university...

23 August 2007

Syria: On PM Maliki's Visit

Sasa from The Syria News Wire reports that Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki praises Syria's cooperation, during his three-day visit to Damascus this week. “He says Syria's co-operation is helping to...

23 August 2007

Jamaica, Cayman Islands: After Hurricane Dean

As Hurricane Dean continued its devastating progress across the Caribbean, bloggers in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands reported on emergency preparations, and post-hurricane images uploaded to Flickr showed damage to be significant but not as severe as feared.

21 August 2007