· August, 2007

Stories about Youth from August, 2007

Bahrain: Nasfa Celebrations

Bahrainis marked the birth of the Shia Imam Al Mahdi with a lot of fanfare and blogger Mahmood Al Yousif was out with his new camera to record the celebrations.

31 August 2007

Japan: Life out of a Manga Kissa

Results of a survey just released by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has found that thousands of people across Japan bordering on poverty live their lives out of Internet cafes or "manga kissa". Bloggers this week reflected on the significance of the results.

30 August 2007

China: Exploitation in Summer Holiday

Tan Weishan reported the exploitation of student workers by a shoe factory in Dongguan. More than a hundred secondary school kids spent their summer holiday working 12 hours a day...

30 August 2007

Uganda: Bloggers Respond to Controversial Daily Monitor Articles

Uganda’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community has gotten a lot of press recently in the form of a number of articles written by Katherine Roubos, a 22-year-old Stanford student from the United States. Most recently, Roubos covered the first ever LGBTI press conference, a story that prompted an anti-gay rally in Kampala.

27 August 2007

Bahrain: Getting Into Gear and Going All the Way…

Our topics range from the highbrow to the lowlife this week, with an exhortation to read more books from across the Arab world, a child’s misunderstanding of a word in a cartoon, and an encounter with a prostitute. A new blogger has just arrived in Bahrain, and another blogger has just returned from a holiday in Iran – where he experienced rather more than he had bargained on during a taxi ride... Read Ayesha Saldanha's take on Bahraini blogs for more.

27 August 2007

Japan: Crazy for a Bug

A catchy tune about a funny-looking bug that bites people's bums and makes them happy, featured regularly as filler between children's programming on the national broadcaster NHK, is catching on like crazy across Japan. In this post, read more about the thinking behind the song, reactions from Japanese bloggers, and a post from one of the creators of the clip.

26 August 2007

Russia: “Mama, We're In Hell!”

A young Russian woman traveling from Helsinki to Moscow found herself in a railway traffic jam caused by the train derailment last week. She was so horrified by the sight of the Russian countryside that she called her mother on her cell phone and told her they were stuck "in hell." The blogger who posted this story has received 469 comments from his readers.

23 August 2007

Central Asia: Amusement parks

You kind of always wanted to visit the ubiquitous amusement parks in Central Asia and the Caucasus, but just never dared to go inside, right? Joshua Kucera takes you on...

23 August 2007