Stories from Quick Reads from June, 2007
Bahamas: Planning for New Providence
Population growth, limited road capacity and potential hurricane threats make it critical for the Bahamas to think about urban planning. Larry Smith at Bahama Pundit explains.
Ukraine, Russia: Serhiy Taftay's Guitar
uaMuzik tells the tale of one Ukrainian musician's legendary guitar.
Ukraine: Lviv Coffee and Food
Olechko prepares to spend August in Lviv: in this post, she writes about the newly-discovered local coffee houses and restaurants.
Ukraine: Erotic Symbolism in Folk Songs Lecture
A Ukrainian Diaspora ethnologist will give a lecture in Kyiv on Aug. 25 on the erotic symbolism in Ukrainian folk songs, Nash Holos reports.
Serbia: Bad TV
Time to do something about the state Radio and Television of Serbia (RTS): Anegdote is considering the options.
Russia: Sochi-2014?
Inside Krasnodar is “waiting with baited breath” for the July 4 announcement of the winner of the 2014 Winter Olympics bid: “Apparently the city of Sochi is also gearing-up for the announcement by declaring the 4th and 5th of July as holidays and preparing to have a free concert with...
Russia, Sweden: Lavrov and Georgian Wine
Vilhelm Konnander reports that the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov was drinking Georgian wine banned in Russia during his recent visit to Sweden.
Russia: Chechen “Daimohk” to Perform in the U.S.
“Daimohk, a children’s dance group based in Grozny and trained by the former first dancer of the Chechen national theatre, will be visiting the US for their first ever tour there,” A Step At A Time reports.
Hungary: Bilingual Education
N.Irish Magyar writes about Hungary's minority languages and bilingual education.
Eastern & Central Europe: Feral's Back; Czech Lustration
Illyrian Gazette posts an update on the fate of Feral Tribune (it's back and financially secure), and writes about lustration and music in the Czech Republic.
Bosnia & Herzegovina: Miroslav Lajcak
Balkanizer posts a lengthy and detailed post on the legacy of the outgoing High Representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina: “[…] an unrefined and unedited thinking about the departure of the old High Representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina (Christian Schwarz-Schilling) and the arrival of new HR – Slovakian diplomat Miroslav Lajcak.”
Russia: Rewriting History
Kosmopolit blogs about Putin's attempts to re-write Russian history.
Poland: BBC on Lustration
Dr. Sean's Diary links to a BBC program on “on lustration and decommunization issues in Poland.”
Iran:Persepolis pulled from Bangkok Film Festival
Cityboy informs us that the Bangkok International Film Festival dropped Marjan Satrapi's prize-winning animated movie,Persepolis.The blogger says Iranian embassy in Thailand announced that Festival managers responded positively to a request from the Iranian Embassy in Bangkok.The movie follows Satrapi's life through the 1979 Islamic revolution,war and mass executions.
China: New Governmental Organization
Lianyue criticized the local non-governmental organization in Xiamen for speaking against conscience and praising the PX project (a huge chemical factory campus) in an interview with foreign reporter (zh). He renamed the NGO into new governmental organization.
China: Western movies insulting Chinese?
Chong translated Lu qui lu wei's commentary on the censorship of Pirates of the Caribbean . The censorship department argued that Chow Yun Fat’s character (a Singaporean Pirate) in movies smears Chinese people’s image.
Japan should work with China to tackle photochemical smog problem
Some scientists have been arguing that air pollution in China is responsible for increased incidents of photochemical smog in Japan. Kaz points out Japan's responsibility as a nation which suffered its own pollution in the past and says that Japan should build a good working relation with China in order...
China: Luxurious Buildings and Shanxi Bricks
CCTV News investigation team asked the Tianya community to submit information concerning extravagant and luxurious building in China (zh). There were many submission. Cha Jing highlighted one of the comments: Without building all these, where to sell all those bricks (produced by slave labour) in Shanxi? (zh)
China: Victims of slave labour
Tan Weishan posted some photos of the victims of slave labour in Shanxi brick kiln, one of them lost his legs because of the supervisor abuse. He was dumped in the middle of the mountain in 2002. Eventhough he had won the court case and the brick kiln had to...
Japan: Distance between NHK and Government
The recent appointment of Komori Shigetaka, who is a close acquaintance of PM Abe Shinzo, as an NHK's management committee member has raised a controversy over the possibility of the government's intervention in public broadcast. Blogger Miepong draws on and analyzes discussions in the Japanese blogosphere as well as mainstream...
Peru: New Video Website Portal
Juan Arellano is excited over a new website called Enlace Nacional [ES] that pulls together videos with a Peruvian focus.
