Stories about Feature from July, 2007
Global Voices in Persian Takes off
Global Voices in Persian finally takes off officially. It started its first baby steps in June and a few of its translations have already been republished on a few sites including a very popular one, Gooya.com and the Iranian Digg,Balatarin. On good days we get around 350 hits and 250...
Guatemala: Journalist's Column Strikes a Nerve Among Bloggers
Dr. Mario Roberto Morales, a prominent writer from Central America recently wrote a column criticizing bloggers for their alleged lack of credibility. This article sparked a wave of criticisms from Guatemalan bloggers who kindly suggested that if blogs bothered him so much, then he should stop reading. In addition, they write that the freedom to publish content for the entire world to read far outweighs the generalizations that Morales puts forth.
China: To blog to dream
Two American bloggers in China will be taking their blog on the road for a year starting with a trip next month, for charity, for understanding, and for your dreams.
Palestine: The Plight of Women
Instead of the usual political banter, this week's view into the Palestinian blogosphere will focus on women - join Jillian York for a glimpse into what female bloggers (or those blogging about females) are thinking.
Iraq: Goooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaal !!!!!
... or Kicking off at the Iraqi Blogodrome. It's a football special today. With Iraq through to the finals of the Asian Cup bloggers are alight with comment on the national team. And there's more, read about how one Iraqi blogger has had enough of blogging; how to survive a trip through Baghdad International Airport; what it is like to have the Iraqi army move in next door; Why Iraqi oil is so critical to the world and much,much more. And, if you read to the end, why one blogger got banned from YouTube. Today's side quotes are from Iraqi poet and blogger April Girl.
Chile: A Controversial Agreement with Microsoft
An agreement signed between the Chilean Ministry of Economy and Microsoft has stunned many Chileans. Microsoft will now have exclusive access to provide services through the Chilean government, and which will make automatic Microsoft users out of ordinary citizens. Some have stated that this agreement was not reached through a public bidding process, and there had not been an opportunity to explore open software alternatives.
D. R. of Congo: Miracle-peddlars, musical hippos and scary lightbulbs
Probably the most consistently interesting Congolese blog is kept by Cédric Kalonji [Fr], whose photographs and commentary bear humorous but often sorrowful witness to the struggles of ordinary life in Kinshasa, the country's heavily populated, run-down capital. Returning from a recent visit to Europe, Cédric found himself wondering whether the...
Hidden Message To The Burmese Junta Published In MyanmarTimes Newspaper
An ad appeared in Monday's edition of Myanmar Times talking about Myanmar's tourism and its appeal to tourists from Scandinavia . The normal looking ad actually had a hidden message targeted at the ruling junta in Myanmar. Myanmar bloggers posted their reaction to the ad.
Arabeyes: Internet War Continues in Egypt
After harassing, questioning and detaining bloggers, the war on the Internet continues in Egypt, this time attacking where it hurts most - the pocket! This is how Egyptian bloggers react to the hike in prices, which will be introduced in September.
Turkey is Typing….Election Issue
The Turkish parliamentary elections were this last Sunday… and despite public protests in the last few months against the ruling party AKP, they still won with a resounding 47 per cent of the popular vote. Turkish bloggers wrote extensively this week about their predictions of the elections and what future...
Japan: Ground Zero at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa
On July 16, shaken by a massive earthquake originating in a fault line that apparently runs directly underneath it, one of the power generators of the world's largest nuclear power plant, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, burst into flame and started billowing black smoke. This week's post includes a report from Diet member and blogger Kondo Masamichi, one of the first to arrive on the scene, and the reaction of another blogger who questions the government's handling of the crisis.
Reactions to kidnapping of Koreans in Afghanistan
South Korean Christian missionaries were abducted in Ghazni, south-west of Kabul, on the 19th of this month. The abductors who kidnapped 23 missionaries are Taleban fighters. The hostages were abducted from a bus travelling from Kandahar to Kabul. What the Taleban fighters demand to the Korean government is first to...
Podcast: Intro to the Nari Jibon Project
Just three weeks ago the Nari Jibon center in Dhaka, Bangladesh was announced as one of five recipients of the first round of Rising Voices outreach grants. This introductory podcast offers some background information to Bangladesh, the current status of Bangladeshi women, and how the Nari Jibon project aims to use citizen media to help empower the voices of young women from Dhaka.
Nigeria: Talking About Aggregation, Copyright and Professionalism
Who knew that when the people behind Naijalive.net decided to set up an aggregator (or an "aggregator" of a different kind, as they put it), their efforts would lead to a discussion about aggregation, copyright and professionalism? What is a blog aggregator? Is copying and pasting a form of aggregation? Must owners of aggregators seek permission from bloggers before using their content? What are the technical requirements for a good aggregator?
Brazilian blogs on another airplane crash
While still facing a highly blogged crisis in its air traffic management, and not yet recovered from the crash of a Boeing-737 over the Amazon ten months ago, Brazil was shaken last week by yet another airplane disaster. On Tuesday, an Airbus-320 with 186 aboard slid off the runway at Congonhas city-airport in São Paulo, and ran across a busy highway during the evening rush hour to crash into a building and a gas station.
Iran: Man is stoned after 11 years in prison
Jafar Kiani was stoned to death in Takestan in the province of Qazvin on 5 July, after serving an 11-year prison term. His crime was adultery. His partner, Mokarameh Ebrahimi, has also been jailed for 11 years along with her two small children, and may be next on the list....
Kurdistance: The Price of Oil
The oil control issue in the Northern Iraq/Southern Kurdistan city of Kirkuk is again at the forefront of Kurdish bloggers' fingertips. With large oil companies and the US pushing for the passing of a regulatory oil law in Iraq, fears reignite that a sinister "Plan B" might be launched in order to gain control of the oil reserves...involving a Turkish incursion into the region.
Lebanon: One year Anniversary of the July War
Last year, around this time, Israel was waging what it later dubbed as "Second Lebanon War" against Lebanon. So last week, most Lebanese bloggers wrote about this war. The posts were about their recollections, reflections, analysis, etc, focusing on the 33 days of summer 2006 in Lebanon. The posts reflect the diverse opinions and perspectives regarding this conflict. This summary attempts to give a sample of as wide a variety of points of view as possible.
Pakistan: Bloggers discuss the bomb blast in Islamabad
In Islamabad, a bomb blast triggered by a suicide bomber killed at least ten people at a rally in support of Pakistan's suspended chief judge. Following the tense time in Pakistan with the Lal Masjid issue as the Pakistani Army stormed the mosque, the country's bloggers have been closely watching...
Lusophony Day: Learning Through Connectedness
We wanted to celebrate the Lusophony Day, as an opportunity to post about the recent launching of the Global Voices website in Portuguese. A quick googling around the keywords brought up the July 17th inspired on CPLP‘s foundation, but as we kept searching other dates appeared like the May 31st...
Hong Kong: GV Editor Oiwan Lam faces court battle over Flickr photo
On May 11th, Oiwan Lam, Global Voices Northeast Asia Editor, committed what she says was a deliberate act of civil disobedience. Writing on the citizen media website InMedia Hong Kong, Oiwan called on her readers to post links to erotic websites and also included an artsy photo of a topless woman that she found on Flickr, the photo sharing site owned by Yahoo!. The post was originally published here, but has now been removed from the InMedia site and posted on a Wordpress.com blog. As Boingboing and others reported earlier this week, Oiwan's post has been classified as "Class II indecent" by Hong Kong's Obscene Articles Tribunal.
