Stories about Media & Journalism from May, 2006
Iran: Free Mana Blog!
Free Mana (Persian) is a new blog which reports all news about arrested cartoonist, Mana Neyestani. Mana drew the cartoon which provoked riots among Azeri community.
Arabisc: Arabic Bloggers Ken
From Egypt… Malek who was scheduled to be free few days ago is now officially free. He just made his first post, titled: Free Morning. Malek writes: الحمدلله تم الافراج عني اليوم في حوالي الساعه الرابعه والنصف من قسم ترحيلات الخليفه لحد دلؤتي مقريتش حاجه اتكتبت عني بس بجد شكرا...
Belarus: Russian Ambassador on Pipeline
TOL's Belarus Blog writes about an interview with the Russian ambassador published in the Belarusian edition of a Russian paper: according to him, “Russia […] is firmly determined to take away the gas pipe (Beltransgaz) from Belarusans and have it under Gazprom’s control.”
Armenia: A1 Denied Frequency
Onnik Krikorian says that the popular A1 has been again denied a broadcast frequency, a decision Onnik says is “yet another blow to press freedom” in Armenia.
North Korea: Foreign bureau opens
International news agency Associated Press has opened a bureau in the North Korean capitol of Pyongyang, blogs Asiapundit‘s myrick, making it the third to do so after China's Xinhua and Russia's Tass: “It will be interesting to see what sort of copy the local staff will produce for AP. But...
Ethiopia: Building firewalls
Satisfy My Soul comments on the alleged blocking of blogspot by the Ethiopian government…”In any case, now that it’s official that bloggers (and now chatters) have been added to EPRDF’s long list of “enemies of the constitution”, what’s to stop them from rounding us up (of course, those of us...
Argentina: Music and Misinformation
This week, Argentinean newspapers informed readers that some Internet users had reached an agreement with CAPIF, the company that represents record companies in Argentina, to pay an amount of money as a compensation for the songs they had illegally downloaded from the Internet. The news coverage shows clear differences between...
China: Blogger beauty pageant
The winner of a recent blogger beauty pageant which wrapped up in Beijing earlier this month walked away with $10,000 in prizes and all the fans she could ever want. “[T]he girls were judged on number of votes they received online, the quality (creativity, originality) of their blog posts, blog...
Trinidad & Tobago: Germany 2006's media darlings
They've appeared in Esquire magazine, several television and print ads and one of them's writing a column for the UK Guardian — the media cannot seem to get enough of the Soca Warriors, Trinidad & Tobago's football team. Stacy-Marie Ishmael at the Trinidad & Tobago World Cup Blog rounds up...
Russia: Putin Helps WWII Veteran
Yuri Mamchur of Russia Blog writes about a Russian WWII veteran from Voronezh who had been left without his veteran's pension by the local government, until the TV – and Vladimir Putin himself – interfered.
Africa: News Map and Zangu News
White African has found yet another use of google and maps – this time its a map of Africa that you can click on and get updated news. He also announces the start up of Zangu News – News for Africans
Russia: Pensioners Get Young TV Stars Drafted
Yuri Mamchur of Russia Blog writes that four participants of a Russian reality show might get drafted because of a letter to the Russian minister of defense from a group of angry elderly women: “Mrs. Vrubel has a 17 year old grandson who is due for his mandatory army service...
East Timor: Foreign Peace Force
Dili-gence reports that East Timor's President has requested for external help in dealing with the recurring violence in the country. The blogger also analyzes the various parties involved in the conflict.
“Twas an action-packed week for Indian bloggers: financial meltdown, reservation quota and the Da Vinci Code controversy etc. etc.
Bloggers penned their thoughts on a whole range of subjects from the stock market crash to Sherlock Holmes...
Vietnam: A gift from Flickr
Our Man in Hanoi gets a surprise gift from the popular photosharing website Flickr.
Saudi Arabia: Saudi-American Media
News Corp. founder Rupert Murdoch and Saudi-Lebanese Rotana founder Prince Waleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz are moving even closer together, lebanon.profile said.
China: Gays have it better
Laowiseass‘ Lalaoshi looks back on his former life as a columnist for China's English-language weekly 21st Century and being banned then from mentioning homosexuality. “Over the past year,” he writes, “other columns in the same paper have mentioned the topic. It looks like the letter writers and the columnists can...
Kyrgyzstan: Press Freedom
Yulia writes about freedom of the press in Kyrgyzstan and discusses ways to achieve journalistic independence for the media.
Serbia & Montenegro: Karadzic's Hiding Place
Balkan Ghost of Finding Karadzic writes that Montenegrin politicians have succeeded in convincing the world and the world media “that Karadzic was Serbia's problem and not theirs”: “Today, newly independent Montenegro is seen by the world as the “next Croatia,” a country that will quickly become prosperous and European through...
Ukraine: Books on Crimean Tatars
Otto Pohl posts a list of English-language publications on Crimean Tatars.
Cartoon, Insecurity & Media
According to news Iran's government has suspended a state-controlled newspaper after it published a cartoon that provoked riots among the country's minority Azeri community. The cartoon shows that a cockroach says in Azeri :” Namana” which means “What?” It is very interesting to see that even Turkish speaking ( Azeri)...