· August, 2007

Stories about Youth from August, 2007

Mauritania : Ignorance and Tradition

  30 August 2007

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Generously endowed women are favored in Mauritania. The fatter the woman, the more beautiful she is thought to be. Being big is also a sign of wealth and the search for beauty and signs of exterior wealth leads to some unorthodox methods...

Japan: Life out of a Manga Kissa

  30 August 2007

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.

China: Exploitation in Summer Holiday

  30 August 2007

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 with RMB$3 (US$0.4) per hour (zh).

Uganda: Bloggers Respond to Controversial Daily Monitor Articles

  27 August 2007

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.

UK, Caribbean: Colours of Notting Hill Carnival

  27 August 2007

Notting Hill Carnival, Europe's largest summer festival, is a celebration of both Caribbean culture and London's multicultural heritage. Images posted by various Flickr users give glimpses of the carnival's colours and faces.

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.

Trinidad & Tobago: Contemporary Art

  27 August 2007

“Caribbean contemporary art has never been more vibrant than it is now,” writes Adele at Thebookmann, as she discusses the work of Trinidadian artist, Ashraph.

Japan: Crazy for a Bug

  26 August 2007

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.

Indonesia: Kidnapping Children for Ransom

  26 August 2007

Nobody in Indonesia feels sure as to what motivates the criminals to abduct a child to serve their purpose. One thing is clear this trend is growing and it grows at an alarming pace. The “climax” of such child abduction criminal trend was the release of Raisya, a 4-year-old pre-nursery...

Trinidad & Tobago: A Case for Condoms

  24 August 2007

“The reality is that people are having sex, illicit or otherwise, with frightening proportions in our country being infected with HIV and other STIs.” Ramblings and Reason makes a case for educating youngsters about being sexually responsible.

Hong Kong: Nine-year-old Enters University

  24 August 2007

A nine-year old genus was accepted by the Baptist University of Hong Kong. Willsin thinks that it is ridiculous as the kid doesn't need to enter university to prove that he is a genus and university life in Hong Kong will kill his childhood fun (zh). Erynnyes feels that the...

Russia: “Mama, We're In Hell!”

  23 August 2007

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.