Stories about Breaking News from May, 2011
Kazakhstan: Suicide Bombing Hits Provincial Office of Nation's Security Service
Yesterday, 17 May, 2011, a suicide bomber exploded himself at the entrance to the regional office of the National Security Committee in Aktobe, a provincial center in Western Kazakhstan. Four people were injured in the blast. This is the first case of suicide bombing in Kazakhstan, a country known for its inter-ethnic tolerance and for boasting its stability in the uneasy region of Central Asia.
Egypt: Online Campaigns to Release Arrested Protesters Underway
Egyptian cyber activists went back to their keyboards to demand the release of protesters and bystanders arrested on Sunday for being at a protest outside the Israeli Embassy in Cairo to commemorate the Nakba (Day of Catastrophe as it is known in the Arab world) which marks the day the State of Israel was created in 1948.
Spain: Thousands of People Take the Streets
Spanish citizens have taken to the streets this week to protest against corruption, unemployment, and a political structure that favors a two-party system. "We're not merchandise in the hands of bankers and politicians," was the motto of tens of thousands who demonstrated all over the country on May 15. Protests and sit-ins will continue.
Guatemala: Brutality and Impunity: Over 28 Decapitated in Petén
This weekend in Guatemala was the bloodiest of 2011. Citizens in the northernmost state of El Petén, are in the middle of one of the worst armed encounters between the Army and one of the most dangerous drug cartels: the Zetas. Not only were at least 28 peasants brutally killed, but also a school, a police station and other public places were bombed.
Lebanon: A Personal Account from Deadly Border Protest
“In a nutshell, protesters amassed at the border armed with flags, slogans and rocks from the ground, and Israel responded by opening fire and killing nearly a dozen youths” stated Sean in a detailed post about his personal experience as he took part in the protest held in the Lebanese border town of Maroun...
Russia: Quantitative Research Proves Blogs Set an Alternative News Agenda
Bruce Etling, Berkman Center scholar and one of the authors of the “Mapping of the Russian Blogosphere” research, posts the initial results of the Russian online media content analysis. While the “Russian TV channels and newspapers (traditional and Web native) cover topics similar to each other and to the Russian government,”...
Russia: Opposition Blogger's Trial Starts After a Year of Detention
Caucasian Knot reports on [ru] Alauddin (Aleksey) Dudko's trial that started only on May 10, 2011, year after his arrest. Dudko (LJ-user ingushetiya_ru), opposition blogger, had been charged with drug and explosives possession. Dudko's lawyers claim, police set him up in order to prevent his blogging activity. According to the...
Russia: North Caucasian Website DDoS-attacked and Hacked
Caucasian Knot reports [ru] a hacker attack on golosingushetii.ru (Voice of Ingushetia), an independent North Caucasian website. In March 2011, the website was subject to a DDoS attack. This time the online offenders managed to hack the website and delete its content. The content has been backed up and now the...
South Korea: Tweeters Helping Residents Suffering from Water Cut-off
As more than a half million residents in Gumi area in North Gyungsang Province have suffered from a water cut-off for over four days now, South Korean Tweeters went to help the distressed residents by supplying bottled water and wiring money gathered via Twitter. One of influential Twitters, @mediamongu posted...
Spain: Videos of the Earthquake in Lorca
Citizen videos show the aftermath of the 5.1 and 4.5 earthquake which struck the city of Lorca in the region of Murcia, Spain on May 11th. According to the City Council, between 20 000 and 30 000 people slept on the streets, while brigades check buildings for safety.
Russia: New Online Electoral Statistics Database Launched
Russian domestic election monitoring group Golos.org has launched an on-line database of electoral statistics stat.golos.org [ru] that contains official data from more than 36 thousand elections of different levels held in Russia since 2003. Golos members noted [ru] that the database greatly eases the access to Russian electoral statistics.
Côte d'Ivoire: Pro-Gbagbo Militiamen Chanting ‘ADO’
Youtube User Vespuca17 posted on May 1, 2011, a video [fr] of pro-Gbagbo militiamen chanting the name of the new President of Côte d'Ivoire, Alassane Dramane Ouattara, ‘ADO’. To some this is one sign of the possible reconciliation the country has been seeking since the capture of former president Laurent Gbagbo.
Colombia: Police Evict 5,400 Squatter Farm Workers
Blueandtanit writes [es] about the eviction of 5,400 homeless farm workers by anti-riot police. The farm workers had occupied farmlands and roads in Urabá (Antioquia department in north western Colombia) early last week. She is concerned about the media coverage of the issue, which treats the squatters as “alleged peasants,”...
Maldives: Rocked by Protests Over Economy
For seven consecutive days, thousands of residents of Male, the capital of Maldives, have protested on busy streets and public spaces, expressing their dissatisfaction over soaring prices of consumer goods and economic mismanagement of the government.
Tunisia: Police Brutality is Back
Tunisians are back on the streets calling for the overthrow of the government, after former Interior Minister Farhat Rajhi announced on Facebook that Tunisia continues to be run by a shadow government, headed by a friend of Ben Ali, Kamel Ltaief, among other things. And once again, protesters were faced with police brutality and repression.
Syria: Reports of Telecom Disruptions as Protests Rage
Twitter users in Syria are reporting that mobile internet telecommunications have been disrupted today, as protests continued across the country. Some also report that landlines and electricity have been disconnected in different areas.
Cuba: Return Prohibited for U.S. Professor and Blogger
Ted Henken, professor at Baruch College at the City University of New York, a well-versed blogger in the Cuban blogosphere, has been informed by authorities from the Department of Security of the State of Cuba that he will not be returning to the island. Over the course of his 12 day stay, Henken interviewed over 40 bloggers for an investigation about blogs and the Internet in Cuba.
Palestine: Gaza Celebrates Hamas/Fatah Reconciliation
Palestinian rival factions Fatah and Hamas ended their bitter feud today, in a reconciliation deal brokered in Cairo, Egypt. News of the deal, which will unite the Gaza Strip, which had been under Hamas' control, and the West Bank, which was under the grip of the Fatah movement, was welcomed with celebrations in Gaza.
Arab World: Where Some Are Mourning Osama Bin Laden
The end of Al Qaeda's Saudi leader Osama bin Laden was met with tributes and remembrance by many users on Twitter from across the Arab world. Here is a sample of tweets from users in Bahrain and Kuwait, who say that Bin Laden may have died but his ideology will live on.
Pakistan: Reactions on the Death of Osama Bin Laden
Long before US president Obama's speech, the news leaked onto Twitter that Osama Bin Laden had been killed and the news media jumped on the story. Soon the Twittersphere started to explode with tweets from all over the world. In fact, the initial reactions from Pakistanis on Twitter started pouring in during the raid on Bin Laden's hideout.
Russia: Security Service Allegedly Exposed Data on Anti-Corruption Contributors
Andrei Malgin publishes [ru] stories and recordings of the bloggers who contributed via Yandex.Money (Russian analogue of PayPal) to Alexey Navalny's project “Rospil.info.” The contributors were contacted by the representatives of “Nashi” youth movement who knew all the details about their transfers. The blogger suggests that the Federal Security Service...
