· February, 2009

Stories about Weblog from February, 2009

The Greatest Street Party on Earth: The Brazilian Carnival

Barack Obama, Fidel Castro and the Iraqi journalist who threw one of his shoes at George Bush were just some of the characters spotted on the streets of Brazil, during this year's Carnival. See a selection of the most interesting pictures published under a Creative Commons license.

28 February 2009

Azerbaijan: Popular website back — minus forum

After several days of closure, the popular semi-independent Azerbaijani news and discussion website, Day.az, is back. However, raising additional questions about its brief disappearance, the site's forum — known for its open and somewhat democratic discussion — is not.

28 February 2009

Video: Community Radios Fill the Information Gap

In a highly globalized and digitalized world, sometimes we may forget that in many regions of the world, not even electricity is available, and the possibility of using internet as an alternative information source is still a distant dream. It is in locations like Guatemala, Chad and India that community radio rises as the alternative for native communities to speak about their concerns, hear news and stories, receive information and all this in their native languages.

28 February 2009

GCC: Currency Dilemma for Arab Gulf Consumers

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) hopes to achieve a monetary union, with a common currency, by 2010. Bloggers from the region, which groups Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, debate the merits of the union and more importantly what name they want for their new currency.

27 February 2009

Mexico: Criticizing Wasteful Government Spending

The Mexican federal government recently updated information about its expenses and its budgets for various public institutions on their transparency portal. Using this public information, many bloggers have identified expenses for questionable recreational activities that have cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of pesos.

27 February 2009

Uganda: Fire destroys Owino Market

A massive fire gutted Kampala's Owino Market early Wednesday morning, seriously injuring five people and destroying thousands of stalls. As many as 25,000 traders, mostly women, are estimated to have suffered losses.

27 February 2009

Japan: Bloggers on the Nakagawa affair

Over a week has passed since now-infamous footage of Japan's former finance minister Shōichi Nakagawa stumbling through a 20 minute speech at the G7 meeting in Rome made world headlines and hit the top of YouTube charts. In this post I feature a handful of responses to the speech by Japanese bloggers.

27 February 2009

Japan: Alpha Blogger Awards 2008 (Part 2)

Starting December 24th, the Alpha Blogger website called for people to nominate 1-3 blog entries written in 2008 that had affected them the most. Mid-term results were announced on January 16th, and voting was open until February 18th. The second half of this year's winners are featured in this post.

27 February 2009

Lebanon: Christopher Hitchens’ Beirut Scuffle Sparks Debate

Former leftist turned conservative writer Christopher Hitchens ran into trouble in Beirut last week when he attempted to deface a poster/memorial of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), a Hezbollah ally. Versions of the event claim a heavily intoxicated Hitchens shouted obscenities at the party, ultimately resulting in an altercation with several SSNP members nearby. These allegations have sparked a debate across continents, writes Antoun Issa.

27 February 2009

Guadeloupe: Police “Blunder”?

Amidst the confusion of the month-long social conflict in Guadeloupe, two nights of violence took place on February 17th and 18th. Apart from acts of arson in shops and numerous...

26 February 2009

Nigeria: Who You Be?: Nigeria's Bloggers Award

“Who You Be?” is the 2009 Nigeria's Bloggers Award whose nominations started February 24th and will run until March 5th. The bloggers behind the award are four female Nigerian bloggers: Sting, Toluwa, Naijagirl and Geisha (a retired blogger). Who You Be has an official blog where nominations, voting and community building will take place.

26 February 2009

Morocco: Simply Delicious

This week, the talk in the blogoma seems to be about all things edible. Moroccan cuisine, widely considered one of the most complex and best in the world, is derived...

26 February 2009

Taiwan: CECA, economic elixir or poison?

CECA? Neither a new game console from Japan nor another evil science project that is going to bring this world to an end? But according to the Government, CECA is coming to save Taiwan's economy from drowning in global financial crisis and the greatest recession in 50 years. However, most people still have no idea what CECA is, and like all the other issues, it is quickly politicized as a new media battle ground set for the continuous fight between KMT, the ruling party, and DPP, the major opposition party. Bloggers again try to ask key questions and explain the issues deeper on their own.

26 February 2009