Stories about Video from December, 2008
Chile: Santa Claus the Bus Driver in Santiago
Paloma Beytelman boarded a bus in Santiago, Chile to find the driver dressed as Santa Claus, who continues this tradition every year to entertain passengers [es]. She filmed a short...
Burning the Year Away: New Year Traditions
In many South American countries, it has become a tradition to burn human shaped representations of the previous year, as a way to get rid of everything bad that the year brought, and leave way for the new. The following videos show some of these traditions and some of the controversy soome of them have sparked.
Syria: Bloggers Infuriated by Israeli Massacre in Palestine
"Many Syrian bloggers feel depressed and paralyzed over what's happening in Gaza now" writes Razan Ghazzawi as she brings us more reactions from the Arabic-language Syrian blogosphere in our continuing coverage about the current Israeli airstrike campaign in the Gaza Strip.
Nicaragua: Voice of a Sandinista Video Blog
Carlos Corea launches a video blog called La Voz de un Sandinista (The Voice of a Sandinista) [es], which can be found on YouTube. He films the series from his...
Tanzania: Friends of Ruaha blog
Samuel Maina of Theatre of Inconveniences introduces the recently launched Friends of Ruaha blog devoted to the conservation of the Ruaha Park in Tanzania which is “arguably, one of the...
Palestine: Relief Boat Docks Safely in Gaza Port
Free Gaza announced that a relief boat carrying medical supplies landed safely in Gaza's port. Among its passengers were representatives of 15 different nations. The Palestinian Video Blog has live...
Guadeloupe: Why not celebrate Kwanzaa as well?
Besides the traditional celebration of Christmas, Guadeloupean people have recently taken up a new celebration: Kwanzaa, which starts on December 26 and lasts until January 1.
Macedonia Timeless
On December 24, 2008, there was a presentation of a promotional video for Macedonia – “Macedonia Timeless.” The video is written and directed by Milcho Manchevski (an Academy Award nominee in 1995), and its purpose is to promote Macedonia as a tourist destination. The video will be aired on CNN, and a dozen countries in eight different languages. Elena Ignatova reviews bloggers' reactions to the video.
China: Interview with Bei Feng
Adam from DANWEI interviewed a famous blogger, Bei feng, who talks about new media space in China.
Gaza/Sderot: Israel and Palestine together on video
The Gaza/Sderot: Life in Spite of Everything Project is one of the prime examples of the variety of ways a bridge between different cultures and world-views can be created through online media. In this project created by ARTE.tv, a French-German cultural television station, twelve people going on their day to day business on either side of a violent border were exposed on a website for ten week project which ended on December 23rd. The two minute videos documented snippets of the lives of 6 characters in Gaza, Palestine and 6 characters on the other side of the border in Sderot, Israel during two months.
Israel: LivniBoy Gives ObamaGirl a Run For Her Money
Check out LivniBoy, Israel's answer to ObamaGirl. His YouTube video, “Love Song to Tzipi Livni,” has received over 6,350 views this week alone. Tzipi Livni is the Kadima Party candidate...
Israel: Celebrating Hanukkah with YouTube
Every year at this time, Jews look forward to Hanukkah, the festival of lights. Jacob Richman posts a list of 70 Hanukkah videos on YouTube, among them is an old...
Video: Costa Rican Artist takes on the Fine Art Classics
Francisco Munguía, a Costa Rican cartoonist and artist has interpreted the Fine Arts classics and is currently doing a show in the Costa Rican Children's Museum. However, you don´t need to travel to Costa Rica to see his work: it is uploaded on YouTube in a gallery style presentation.
Southeast Asia: The shoe, the shoe
Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi will be known for a long time as the shoe thrower. He who succeeded in throwing a pair of shoes at U.S. President George Bush last Sunday. The shoe throwing incident has been hailed as heroic by many people around the world, especially those who opposed the foreign policies of the outgoing leader. What are the reactions of Southeast Asian bloggers and residents?
Costa Rica: Call for Collaborative Christmas Video
Costa Rican online humour collective nosedecirlaerre.com which translates into "I can´t pronounce the R" has set out a call for participation from Costa Ricans and those familiar with their culture to create a collaborative video for Christmas. The campaign is called Uniting Ticos for Christmas and the requirements are quite simple: dancing in the Costa Rican style of "swing criollo" the popular end of the year song Jugo de Piña and saying something in Costa Rican slang, on video.
AIDS: Orphans, Marches and Reminders
Following up on past AIDS coverage such as the AIDS Conference 2008 and the World AIDS Day 2008, we bring you a video that shows the plight of orphans in South Africa whose parents have died from AIDS, the AIDS day celebrations in Bangladesh, a reminder from Mexico to get tested from SexualidadIntegral podcast and the AIDS impact report from the 2008 Conference in the Mexico City as well.
Cuba: We Shall Overcome
Cuban bloggers all link to video of what they say is Generation Y‘s “call to action to all bloggers, a plea for solidarity with the ‘embryonic’ Cuban blogosphere.”
Bermuda: High Food Prices
21 Square offers a few tangible solutions for curbing high food prices in Bermuda.
Bangladesh: Bloggers unearth the fake Taj Mahal scam
If you cannot visit the Taj Mahal at Agra (India) then the Taj Mahal will have to visit you in your hometown. For the last few days, we have been...
Azerbaijan: Destruction of Ancient Cemetery Commemorated
Three years after a cemetery dating back to the 9th Century was deliberately destroyed in the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan, bloggers recall an ancient culture annihilated and condemn the world for closing its eyes to what many consider to be an official attempt to rewrite history.
Australia: Reflections from ‘No Clean Feed’ rallies
Australians in seven cities demonstrated on Saturday against the Rudd government’s plan to require Internet Service Providers to block access to websites publishing child pornography and other unsuitable and illegal content.